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DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBR'ARY 
DURHAM, N. C. 


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https://archive.org/details/twohundredfiftie01 | I 


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PUBLICATIONS 


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AMERICAN 


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Jewish Historical Society 


NUMBER 14 


1906 


PUBLISHED BY 
Kinp Permission OF THE ExecuTIVE CoMMITTEER 
on THE Two HunpReEpD anp Firtietu 
ANNIVERSARY OF THE SETTLEMENT 
OF THE Jews IN THE 
UnitTep STATEs 


93429 


yuoy asoprsy fq ‘9067 ‘2ybrhdop 
TIVGAUW AYOLVYUONANNOD 


Fiftieth Anniversary 
of the Settlement 
of the Jews in 
the United 
States 


Addresses delivered at 
cane Hall, New York 


WS Cx: Oy n T hanksgiving Day 2% 


‘Together with other select- 
ed ee and ei 


THE NEW YORK CO-OPERATIVE SO 


Copyright, 1906, by 


PREFACE 


The success of the celebration of the Two Hundred 
and Fiftieth Anniversary of Jewish Settlement in 
America, and the valuable contributions to American 
Jewish history that it has occasioned, have induced | 
the Executive Committee to preserve and reproduce 
in more permanent form a number of typical ad- 
dresses, communications, and editorial writings, se- 
lected from the great mass of interesting and instruct- 
ive material, remarkable for its excellence both as to 
matter and literary quality, called forth by the hun- 
dreds of public meetings held in the latter days of 
November, 1905, in conformity with the reeommenda- 
tions of the Committee. To publish all would require 
many volumes of huge bulk. It has, therefore, become 
necessary to resort to an arbitrary rule of selection. 
Obviously, the proceedings held at Carnegie Hall, in 
the City of New York, on Thanksgiving Day, being 
national in scope, constitute the nucleus of the compila- 
tion. Around these have been grouped a few of the 
many addresses delivered at such old or important cen- 
ters of Jewish population as Boston, Philadelphia, 
Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, Albany, 
and San Francisco. That circumstances have rendered 
any omissions necessary is a source of sincere regret. 

It may not be inappropriate to briefly sketch the 
history of the movement whose culmination has been 


ey 


the source of universal gratification, and will, it is 
hoped, lead to a better understanding of the Amer- 
ican Jew as an element in our population, not only 
by the public generally, but by the Jew himself. 

On February 27th, 1905, the Board of Trustees of 
the Congregation Shearith Israel of New York, the 
oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, ap- 
pointed a general committee of the congregation to 
consider the propriety of celebrating the Two Hun- 
dred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Jewish com- 
munity in New York. This committee invited the offi- 
cers of various Jewish congregations and charities to 
attend a public meeting at the vestry rooms of the 
synagogue on Sunday, April 9th, 1905. Concur- 
rently, the American Jewish Historical Society at its 
thirteenth annual meeting held in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 
February 28th, 1905, had instructed its Executive 
Council to codperate with other organizations in the 
proper commemoration of the event. At the public 
meeting in New York, Louis Marshall, Esq., presid- 
ing, and Hon. N. Taylor Phillips acting as secretary, 
it was unanimously resolved, upon motion of Rev. 
Dr. H. Pereira Mendes, “ that a Committee of Fifteen 
be appointed by the chairman of this meeting to make 
arrangements for a celebration at some time during 
the present year of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth 
Anniversary of the foundation of the Jewish com- 
munity in the City of New York, and for the estab- 
lishment of a permanent memorial of that important 
historic event, such Committee to have full power to 
carry such arrangements into effect, and to increase 
its number, if deemed advisable.” The chairman and 


[vi] 


secretary were added as members of this committee. 
It was the sense of the meeting that the celebration 
should be national in scope, as commemorating the 
first officially authorized settlement of Jews within 
the present limits of the United States, and that the 
particular event to be commemorated be the grant of 
official leave of settlement, dated April 26th, 1655, 
from the Dutch West India Company, though it 
would probably be most convenient to hold the cele- 
bration in the fall. The text of this grant reads as 
follows: 


26th of April, 1655. 

“We would have liked to agree to your wishes and re- 
quest that the new territories should not be further in- 
vaded by people of the Jewish race, for we foresee from 
such immigration the same difficulties which you fear, but 
after having further weighed and considered the matter, 
we observe that it would be unreasonable and unfair, es- 
pecially because of the considerable loss sustained by the 
Jews in the taking of Brazil, and also because of the large 
amount of capital which they have invested in shares of 
this company. After many consultations we have decided 
and resolved upon a certain petition made by said Portu- 
guese Jews, that they shall have permission to sail to and 
trade in New Netherland and to live and remain there, 
provided the poor among them shall not become a burden 
to the company or to the community, but be supported by 
their own nation. You will govern yourself accordingly.” 


The chairman of the meeting thereupon appointed 
the following Executive Committee: Jacob H. Schiff, 
chairman; Dr. Cyrus Adler, Hon. Samuel Greenbaum, 
Daniel Guggenheim, Prof. Jacob H. Hollander, Max 


[ vii ] 


J. Kohler, Hon. Edward Lauterbach, Adolph Lewi- 
sohn, Louis Marshall, Rev. Dr. H. Pereira Mendes, 
Hon. N. Taylor Phillips, Hon. Simon W. Rosendale, 
William Salomon, Isaac N. Seligman, Louis Stern, 
Hon. Oscar S. Straus, and Hon. Mayer Sulzberger. 
The committee organized by the appointment of Mr. 
Schiff as chairman, Mr. Seligman as treasurer, and 
Mr. Kohler as honorary secretary. A General Com- 
mittee, composed of representative Jews residing in 
every State and Territory of the United States, was 
subsequently constituted, their names appearing post 
(p. 258). 

Arrangements were in due time made to hold a 
public celebration at Carnegie Hall, New York City, 
on November 30th (Thanksgiving Day), 1905, and 
to recommend holding commemoratory religious serv- 
ices on the Saturday and Sunday before Thanksgiv- 
ing Day in the various synagogues and Sabbath 
schools throughout the land. A special order of serv- 
ice was prepared under the auspices of the committee 
for use at the synagogues, including a special prayer 
for the occasion, which is to be found post (p. 253). 

Such religious services were held, the various con- 
gregational Unions and Rabbinical Conferences join- 
ing in the Executive Committee’s recommendation. 
Appropriate exercises were also held on or about 
Thanksgiving Day under the auspices of various 
Jewish lodges, Young Men’s Hebrew Associations, 
sections of the Council of Jewish Women, Jewish 
Chautauqua circles, and orphan asylums, and in a 
number of instances, general local celebrations of an 
impressive character were also held. 


[ viii ] 


The Executive Committee also distributed litera- 
ture bearing on the celebration among individuals 
likely to be interested, including a pamphlet (see 
reprint in Appendix ) prepared for it, entitled * Notes 
Relating to the Celebration of the Two Hundred 
and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of the 
Jews in the United States,” and a reprint of the 
article prepared by Dr. Cyrus Adler for Volume I 
of the “ Jewish Encyclopedia ” on the history of the 
Jews in America. 

The erection of a suitable memorial of the event 
celebrated was likewise planned. A fund of upward 
of $100,000 was to be collected by voluntary sub- 
scriptions from the Jews of the United States to de- 
fray the cost, but this plan was abandoned by resolu- 
tion of the Executive Committee, adopted November 
12th, 1905, after a considerable sum had been col- 
lected, because ‘* the demands on the generosity of the 
Jews of America, necessitated by the horrors resulting 
from the recent massacres in Russia, make it impera- 
tive that every energy be directed to the immediate 
relief of the distress of our unfortunate brethren 
there,” and it was feared that funds might be diverted 
to this Memorial Fund, which might otherwise go to 
the Russian Relief Fund. 

It was, however, decided that plans, previously ap- 
proved, for the publication and distribution of a 
popular “ History of the Jews in the United States,” 
to be issued with the codperation of the Jewish Pub- 
lication Society of America and the American Jewish 
Historical Society, should be carried out, and that 
this volume of proceedings should also be issued, 


[ ix ] 


funds for this purpose having been contributed from 
all parts of the country. 

An anonymous donor has generously placed at the 
disposal of the committee the means for defraying 
the cost of an appropriate commemoratory medal 
(see Frontispiece), designed and modeled by the dis- 
tinguished Jewish sculptor, Isidore Konti, which is to 
symbolize the ideals embodied in this anniversary. 
This medal, it is hoped, will be completed during the 
spring of 1906. 


Tue Executive CoMMITTEE. 


[x] 


CONTENTS 


PROGRAMME OF EXERCISES AT CARNEGIE HALL . 


OPENING Prayer BY Rev. Dr. SILVERMAN . 
IntrropuctTion By Jacos H. ScuHirr 
ADDRESS BY Ex-PRESIDENT CLEVELAND 
Letrer FROM PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 
TELEGRAM FROM VICE-PRESIDENT FAIRBANKS 
ApprEss BY GOVERNOR HiccGINs 

AppreEss By Mayor McCiLetian 

ORATION BY JUDGE MayYER SULZBERGER 
AppREss BY BisHop GREER 

Appress BY Rey. Dr. H. Pererra MENDES 


ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN BOSTON 


Appress BY Lee M. FriepMAN 

AppreEss BY LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR GUILD 
ApprREss BY Oscar S. STRAUS 

ADDREss BY PRESIDENT ELIOT . 

AppreEss BY Bishop LAWRENCE 

Appress BY Rev. Dr. FLEISCHER 


SELECTED ADDRESSES 


Appress BY Louis MARSHALL . 
Appress By Dr. S. Sotis CoHEN . 
Appress BY Rev. Dr. Krauskopr 
AppreEss By Rev. Dr. KoHLEeR 


[xi] 


= 131 


PAGE 
Appress BY Rev. Dr. Puiuirson . 4 ‘ j NSE 


ADDREss BY JUDGE J. W. Mack |. | 2 (2°) ae 

AppREss BY Rey. Dr. Hirscu oa OE ae 

Appress By Rev. Dr. HELLER - OE es ee 

ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR PARDEE . . . ... 172 

AppreEss BY Rey. Dr. VoorsANGER . . .  . 183 

LETTER FROM GOVERNOR FOLK re 
APPENDIX 


I. SELEcTED EprrorisL UTrerANCES FROM THE NEws- . 
PAPER PRESS 


The Hebrew in America 


From the Atlanta Constitution . . . . 199 
The Jewish Race 

From the Boston Post.  . . 2 i 
The Jewish Celebration 

From the Brooklyn Eagle . . . . .« 204 
The Rise of the Jews 

From the Denver Republican . . . . 208 
A Jewish Festival 

From the Mexico City Herald . . . . 210 
Jewish Idealism ; 

From the New York Evening Post. .  . 213 
The Jewish Thanksgiving 

From the New York Globe . 2 ees 


The Jew in American Life 
From the New York Journal of Commerce and 
Commercial Bulletin . : . ee . 220 


The Jews in America 


From the New York Times 5 u : . 224 


Eoue 


Il. 


Til. 


IV. 


The Jews in America 


From the Philadelphia Record . . .  . 228 
The Jews in America 

From the Washington Star Sas ih inl eM eee 
From Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott 

PditonvonthegOulooky aera names t 
CoRRESPONDENCE 
England to America. 5 : : ; b . 233 
America to England . 6 m Y 4 : . 236 


From A PampHuret EntitLep “Norres RELATING 
TO THE CELEBRATION OF THE Two Hun- 
DRED AND FirrirtH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
SETTLEMENT OF THE JEWS IN THE UNITED 
STATES” 


Introduction . lf 2 4 ‘ f : 3 . 242 
Notes ‘ i : i i i ‘ ‘ f . 244 


OrpER OF SERVICE FOR USE ON THE SABBATH 
BEFORE THANKSGIVING Day, 1905. . 253 


. CoMMITTEES IN CHARGE OF THE GENERAL CELE- 


BRATION 
Executive Committee . u : 4 s u . 257 
General Committee i 4 : . . 258 


[ xiii ] 


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EXERCISES IN CELEBRATION OF THE 

TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVER- 

SARY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE JEWS 
IN THE UNITED STATES, 1655-1905 


CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK CITY, 
THANKSGIVING DAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1905 


PROGRAMME 


1. OVERTURE 2 % A Mendelssohn 
* March of Priests”? from ‘* Athalie ” 


2. PRAYER 


Reverend JoserH SILveRMAN, D.D. 
Rabbi Temple Emanu-El, New York City 


8. CHORUS 2 : 3 : Mendelssohn 


From Oratorio “ Elijah” 


“He, watching over Israel, slumbers not, nor sleeps. 
es thou, walking in grief, languish, He will quicken 
ee.” 


4. INTRODUCTION 
Jacos H. Scuirr, Esq. 


Chairman of the Executive Committee 


5. ADDRESS : f q : p a 
Honorable Grover CLEVELAND 


[1] 


6. KOL NIDRE : ; : , Bruch 
Solo Violoncello, Mr. Lzo Scuuxz 


7. ADDRESS . : , . 


Honorable Franx Ww. Hee 
Governor of the State of New York 


8. ADDRESS : : : . . 


Honorable Grorce B. McCrae 
Mayor of the City of New York 


9. LARGO : : : Handel 
For Chorus, String Gesieee) Hate and Organ 
Solo Violin, Mr. Davy Mannes 


“Trust in the Lord, 
re name we ever bless 


ere and a 
With one accord 


He ordered all our ways, 
To Him ascend our lays 
In praise and pray’ c 
Until our journey’s end, 
O Lord, our souls defend 
With watchful care.” 


10. ORATION 3 3 ; ‘ . 
Honorable Maver tae 


11. CHORUS : 4 2 Mendelssohn 
“Thanks be to God,” Bie “* Elijah ” 


“Thanks be to God, He laveth the thirsty land. The 
waters gather, they rush along! They are lifting their voices! 
The stormy billows are high, their fury i is mighty; but the 
Lord is above them, and ighty.” 


12. ADDRESS 
The Right Reverend ees H. Gane D. D. 
Bishop Coadjutor of New York 


[2] 


13. ADDRESS A : - 


Reverend H. Pereira Menpes, D.D. 
Rabbi Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, New York City 


14. ADON OLAM : : : 
Downtown Cantors’ Association of New York 
(To be sung in Hebrew. The English translation 
is as follows:) 


Lord over all! Whose power the scepter swayed, 
Ere first Creation’s wondrous form was framed, 

When by His will divine all things were made; 
Then, King, Almighty was His name proclaimed. 


When all shall cease—the universe be o’er, 
In awful greatness He alone will reign, 
Who was, Who is, and Who will evermore 

In glory most refulgent still remain. 


Sole God! unequaled and beyond compare, 
Without division or associate; 

Without commencing date, or final year, 
Omnipotent He reigns in awful state. 


He is my God! my living Saviour He! 

“My sheltering Rock in sad misfortune’s hour! 
My standard, refuge, portion, still shall be, 

My lot’s disposer when I seek His power. 


Into His hands my spirit I consign 

Whilst wrapped in sleep, that I again may wake 
And with my soul, my body I resign; 

The Lord’s with me—no fears my soul can shake. 


15. CHORUS AND AUDIENCE ; - 
** My Country! ’tis of thee ” 


1 2 
My country! ’tis of thee, My native country, thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, Land of the noble free, 
Of thee I sing: Thy name I love; 


Land, where es fathers died, I love thy rocks and rills, 

Land of the pilgrim’s pride, Thy woods and templed hills; 

From every mountain side My heart with rapture thrills 
Let freedom ring! Like that above. 


[3] 


3 4 


Let music swell the breeze, Our fathers’ God! to thee, 
And ring from all the trees Author of liberty, 
Sweet freedom’s song: To thee we sing: 
Let mortal tongues awake, Long may our land be bright 
Let all that breathe partake, With freedom’s holy light; 
Let rocks their silence break, Protect us with Thy might, 
The sound prolong. Great God, our King. 


16. BENEDICTION 


Reverend RupotpH Grossman, D.D. 
Rabbi Congregation Rodeph Sholom, New York City 


A letter from the President of the United States 
will be read in the course of the proceedings. 


The musical programme ts in charge of Dr. Frank Damrosch, as- 
sisted by members of the People’s Choral Union, who have most cour- 
teously volunteered their services, and by the New York Symphony Or- 
chestra. Mr. Frank L. Sealy at the organ. 


[4] 


OPENING PRAYER BY REV. DR. JOSEPH 
SILVERMAN 


Almighty Father, source of light and life, we revere 
Thee as the Providence that guides the affairs of man 
and the destinies of nations. Thou sendest forth Thy 
ministers to destroy what is false and evil and to plant 
what is true and good. 

Throughout the ages Thou hast been the Guardian 
of Israel, who sleepest not, nor slumberest—a pillar of 
cloud to lead them by day and a pillar of fire to show 
them the way at night. In the dark days of bondage, 
of wanderings and exile, of servitude under foreign 
masters, Thou hast ever been Israel’s comfort, prop 
and hope.’ 

Our forefathers labored and struggled for con- 
viction and faith. We have received the heritage of 
Israel and shall bravely bear all trials in the service 
of truth and justice. But not unto us is the glory; 
Thine, O Lord, are the power, the glory, and the 
majesty. 

We thank Thee with deep-felt gratitude, that 
Thou hast cast our lot in pleasant places, that Thou 
didst guide our ancestors to this land of liberty, and 
didst prosper them in the days of yore. 

We thank Thee for America, this haven of refuge 
for the oppressed of the world. We thank Thee for 
the blessings of a permanent home in this country, 
its opportunities for development of life and advance- 
ment of mind and heart, for its independence and 
unity, its free institutions, the rights to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. We reverently bow be- 


[5] 


fore Thy decree, which has taught us to find endur- 
ing peace and security in the sure foundation of this 
blessed land. 

Here we have established our habitations and taber- 
nacles, here we have erected our synagogues and homes 
for the needy, the orphans and widows, the sick and 
forlorn, and we fervently pray that we may be per- 
mitted to abide here forever in prosperity and in amity 
with all the people of the land. 

Mindful of all the blessings we enjoy in this land, 
we are grateful unto Thee for the contrast presented 
to-day between the country of freedom and the 
country of Russian slavery—between this nation of 
justice and peace and the Eastern land of tyranny 
and destruction. 

We pray unto Thee, the Ruler of nations, to spread 
Thy wings of protection over our common country. 
Bless the President and his counselors and the mag- 
istrates and legislators of the nation, and of every 
state and city in the Union. Keep far from our be- 
loved land the ravages of sword, fire, flood, and pesti- 
lence. May no foe from within or without threaten 
its peace and integrity. May this land advance to- 
ward ever higher planes of truth and justice to the 
end that America may become the bearer of peace to 
all the nations of the world. 

We pray also for our suffering brethren who, in a 
distant land, are passing through the fire that con- 
sumeth and the water that overwhelmeth. Stay the 
hand of the oppressor, dull the edge of the sword, and 
divert the course of the deadly weapon. Send forth 
Thy ministering angels to heal the afflicted and bind 


[6] 


up the broken-hearted. And let all men learn and 
practice the wise teaching, to love the Lord their God 
with all their heart and soul and might, and to love 
their fellow-men as themselves. Speed the time, O 
God, when all men shall believe the truth and shall 
practice what they profess. Amen. 


[7] 


INTRODUCTION BY JACOB H. SCHIFF 


When some months since it was decided to cele- 
brate the settlement of Jews in the United States, 
and in this very city, two hundred and fifty years 
ago, the people of the Jewish faith throughout the 
land felt glad and proud, because this beloved coun- 
try of their adoption had become the great ex- 
ponent of human liberties and of freedom of con- 
science, furnishing an example to the world how great 
and powerful a people can become, who give equal 
opportunity to all, no matter what their origin or 
their profession of faith may be. But our gladness 
has received a shock, our hopes and expectations have 
for the time being become dispelled. The brother- 
hood of man, our prophets have taught us to look for- 
ward to, still remains a dream, the realization of which 
the events of this very month have once more removed 
into the distant future. Racial prejudice and hatred 
are still rampant; the Jew still remains the martyr, 
whose life must be sacrificed, so that freedom and en- 
lightenment, for which he has ever — shall tri- 
umph even in darkest Russia. 

But though we sorrow, we feel we should rejoice 
and celebrate, because America did become in cen- 
turies gone by the home of people of our race and 
faith, and is now our own home and the home of our 
children. 

Indeed, I am grateful for the honor, which has so 
graciously been bestowed upon me, to preside over 
this celebration ; and before I exercise the great privi- 
lege to present to you the honored speakers of the 


[8] 


day, I ask to be permitted to give expression in a 
few words to the feelings which animate us upon this 
momentous occasion. 

When, in 1655, two hundred and fifty years ago, 
people of our race and faith first set foot upon these 
shores to become permanent settlers, hardly a cen- 
tury and a half had passed since Columbus had un- 
locked the gates of this hemisphere to the civilized 
world. Thus the heritage which the great Genoese 
presented to mankind was availed of by our own 
people at so early a period of the development of the 
New World that we believe we are justified in the 
claim that this is our country, to a like extent as it 
has become the country of other early and later 
comers, in common with whom we have built this great 
nation, of which we now form part and parcel. 

Look at the record of the wonderful and glorious 
progress and development of our country, and upon 
every page will be found the name of the Jew as 
having rendered meritorious and patriotic service. 
Not that we claim that the Jewish citizen has at any 
time done more than his simple duty; but in the at- 
tempt, so frequently made, to consider us a foreign 
element, it is well and proper, upon an occasion like 
the present, to emphasize the fact that two hundred 
and fifty years ago, and ever since, the Jew who has 
landed on these shores has come to this country to 
throw his lot with its people, to share their burdens, 
to benefit by their opportunities, to become an Amer- 
ican, in the best meaning of this proud title and all it 
stands for. 

And having said this, we may add that, as Jews, we 


[9] 


are ever mindful of the untold blessing which the fact, 
that the beacon light of human liberty and freedom 
is kept burning brightly by the people of the United 
States, brings not only to those of their race whose 
good fortune it is to be among the dwellers within 
this blessed land, but even to their brethren in faith in 
foreign lands, who still suffer under restrictions un- 
worthy of modern civilization—and who, I must sor- 
rowfully add, in the light of recent events, are still 
made the victims of the lowest human passions and 
prejudice. Because of this great blessing the United 
States is bestowing upon mankind, the Jew everywhere 
is an ardent admirer of America and her people, and 
everywhere his face is set longingly and hopefully 
toward these shores. 

We who are Americans pledge ourselves anew, upon 
this momentous occasion, to our fellow-citizens, from 
whatever race they may have sprung or whatever faith 
they may profess, that we shall ever stand ready to 
be one with them in every endeavor to further aug- 
ment the greatness of this, our beloved common coun- 
try, and the respect in which it is held throughout the 
world. 


I now have the honor to present to you one who is 
foremost among the great statesmen this country has 
produced ; one who, you will all agree with me, unites 
in himself all the qualities which go to make up the 
type of the ideal American, a man to whom we will- 
ingly look for guidance and emulation— 

Ex-President Grover Cleveland. 


[ 10 ] 


ADDRESS BY EX-PRESIDENT GROVER 
CLEVELAND 


Mr. CuHarrmMan anp Lapies anp GENTLEMEN: 
Among the large enterprises and undertakings which 
have become familiar to the people of the United 
States, there may be mentioned the extravagant cele- 
bration, especially in these latter days, of all sorts 
of anniversaries and events. Many of these undoubt- 
edly tend to the improvement and stimulation of pa- 
triotic sentiment. But there is good reason to believe 
that others have no better justification than the in- 
dulgence of local pride or the furtherance of narrow 
and selfish interests. 

We join to-day in “ the celebration of the two hun- 
dred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the 
Jews in the United States.” This event created such 
an important epoch in our country’s development, and 
its relationship to our nation’s evolution is so clearly 
seen in the light of present conditions, that every 
thoughtful American citizen must recognize the fit- 
ness and usefulness of its commemoration. To those 
of the Jewish faith it recalls a foothold gained, that 
meant for them a home and peaceful security, after 
centuries of homelessness and ruthless persecution. 
To those of us professing a different religious faith, 
it brings to mind the landing upon our soil of an 
element of population whose wonderful increase and 
marked traits of character have added a powerful 
factor to our national progress and achievement. All 
nationalities have contributed to the composite popu- 
lation of the United States—many of them in greater 


[11] 


number than the Jews. And yet I believe that it can 
be safely claimed that few, if any, of those contribut- 
ing nationalities have directly and indirectly been 
more influential in giving shape and direction to the 
Americanism of to-day. What our Jewish fellow- 
citizens have done to increase the material advance- 
ment of the United States is apparent on every hand 
and must stand confessed. But the best and highest 
Americanism is something more than materialistic. 
Its spirit, which should make it imperishable and im- 
mortal, exists in its patriotic aspirations and exalting 
traditions. On this higher plain of our nationality, 
and in the atmosphere of ennobling sentiment, we also 
feel the touch of Jewish relationship. If the dis- 
covery of America prophesied the coming of our na- 
tion and fixed the place of its birth, let us not forget 
that Columbus, on his voyage in search of a new world, 
was aided in a most important way by Jewish sup- 
port and comradeship. If the people of the United 
States glory in their free institutions as the crown of 
man’s aspiration for self-government, let them not 
be unmindful of the fact that the Jews among us 
have in their care and keeping the history and tradi- 
tions of an ancient Jewish commonwealth astonish- 
ingly like our own Republic in its democracy and 
underlying intention. This ancient commonwealth 
was ordained of God for the government of His 
chosen people; and we should not close our minds to 
a conception of the coincidence in divine purpose dis- 
coverable in the bestowal, by the Ruler of the uni- 
verse, of a similar plan of rule, after thousands of 
years, upon the people of the United States, who also 


[ 12 ] 


had their beginning in willing submission to God’s 
sovereignty, and the assertion of freedom in His wor- 
ship. When with true American enthusiasm and 
pride we recall the story of the war for our inde- 
pendence, and rejoice in the indomitable courage and 
fortitude of our Revolutionary heroes, we should not 
fail to remember how well the Jews of America per- 
formed their part in the struggle and how in every 
way they usefully and patriotically supported the in- 
terests of their newly found home. Nor can we over- 
look, if we are decently just, the valuable aid cheer- 
fully contributed by our Jewish fellow-countrymen in 
every national emergency that has since overtaken us. 
They gave convincing evidence of their assimilation 
of the best sentiment of American patriotism by 
heartily joining in the popular acclaim that met the 
selection of Washington as the first President of our 
new Republic. In support of this statement it cer- 
tainly cannot be amiss to quote the following pas- 
sages from a letter addressed to General Washington 
after his election to the presidency, by the Hebrew 
congregation in Newport, Rhode Island: 

“‘ Deprived as we hitherto have been of the inalien- 
able rights of free citizens, we now, with a deep sense 
of gratitude to the almighty Disposer of all events, 
behold a government erected by the majesty of the 
people, a government which to bigotry gives no sanc- 
tion, to persecution no assistance, but generously af- 
fording to all liberty of conscience and immunities of 
citizenship, deeming every one, of whatever nation, 
tongue, and language, equal parts of the great goy- 
ernment. machine. 


[13 ] 


“ This so ample and extensive Federal Union, whose 
base is philanthropy, mutual confidence, and public 
virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of 
the great God who rules in the armies of the heavens 
and among the inhabitants of the earth, doing what- 
ever seemeth to Him good.” 

These expressions, besides bearing on the hearty 
participation of our Jewish fellow-citizens in the pa- 
triotic sentiments of the time, illustrate how thor- 
oughly they appreciated the new opportunities and 
the new security offered to them by a free, just, and 
popular government. 

And thus it happened that the Jewish immigrants 
who were driven to our colonies by religious persecu- 
tion, and their descendants, have, under the kindly 
influence of toleration and equality, codperated in 
nation-building with those of different religious 
faiths, whose ancestors, or they themselves, had also 
sought, amid hard and inhospitable surroundings, 
freedom to worship God. Jewish patriotism, which 
had been for centuries submerged and smothered in 
homeless wanderings and nationless existence, in the 
more cheerful light and warmth of a safe abiding 
place, sprang up and flourished. It has been said: 
“If you persecute, you make slaves; only by declar- 
ing equal rights for all will you make good citizens.” 
The rule that equality in right is essential to good 
citizenship has never been better supported than by 
the result of according equal rights to the Jews who 
found a home on the soil of the United States. 

I do not overlook the fact that the full enjoyment 
by the Jews of religious and industrial freedom was 


[14] 


not without restraint or limitation at the time of their 
first arrival. Nor am I in the least inclined to claim 
that Jewish characteristics or the Jewish religion is, 
or ever had been, absolutely preventive of bad men 
and bad citizens. It cannot be denied, however, that 
with even the limited equality of rights at first ac- 
corded to the Jews by the American colonies, their 
loyalty and effective patriotism when needed were not 
wanting. 

We have to-day only to look about us to discover 
that, in every phase of present American enterprise 
and effort, the Jews of the United States, with unre- 
stricted toleration and equality, are making their im- 
press more and more deep and permanent upon our 
citizenship. They accumulate wealth without exhib- 
iting or encouraging harmful extravagance and 
business recklessness. They especially care for their 
poor, but they do it sensibly, and in a way that avoids 
pauper-making. On every side are seen monuments 
of their charitable work, and evidences of their deter- 
mination to furnish their children and youth equip- 
ment for usefulness and self-support. It is not among 
them that dangerous discontent and violent demon- 
strations against peace and order are hatched and fos- 
tered. ‘There may be something of separateness in 
their social life among us, but this should be naturally 
expected among those who are not altogether free 
from the disposition born of persecution and the loss 
of nationality, to seek in a common devotion to their 
peculiar religious creed the strongest bond of their 
social fellowships. And yet, with it all, they are by 
no means laggards in the civic duty and the work in 


[15 ] 


behalf of the general welfare of the state, which are 
the badges of good citizenship. 

It is time for the unreserved acknowledgment that 
the toleration and equal opportunity accorded to the 
' Jews of the United States have been abundantly re- 
paid to us. And in making up the accounts, let us 
not omit to put to their credit the occasion presented 
to us through our concession to them of toleration and 
equality, for strengthening, by wholesome exercise, 
the spirit of broad-minded justice and consideration, 
which, as long as we are true to ourselves, we must 
inflexibly preserve as the distinguishing and saving 
traits of our nationality. 

I know that human prejudice—especially that 
growing out of race or religion—is cruelly inveterate 
and lasting. But wherever in the world prejudice 
against the Jews still exists, there can be no place for 
it among the people of the United States, unless they — 
are heedless of good faith, recreant to the underlying 
principles of their free government, and insensible to 
every pledge involved in our boasted equality of citi- 
zenship. 

Roger Williams, the pioneer of religious liberty in 
America, expressed the fear, long before the United 
States became a nation, that England and the other 
nations had a score to pay to the Jews, and he added 
these words: “I desire not the liberty to myself 
which I would not freely and impartially weigh out 
to all the consciences of the world beside.” Our na- 
tion will have no score to pay to the Jews. As a peo- 
ple we shall never suffer the humiliation of appealing 
to them for favors with the shamefacedness of intol- 


[ 16 ] 


erance unforgotten and unforgiven. The Jews of the 
United States have become our fellow-citizens, and, 
like us, have at heart the prosperity and safety of 
our common country—forasmuch as we have desired 
not that liberty to ourselves which we would not freely 
and impartially weigh out to all the consciences of 
the world beside. 

After all it comes to this: We celebrate an event 
in the history of our country fraught with important 
results, and deeply concerning us all as citizens of the 
United States. In the spirit of true Americanism let 
us all rejoice in the good which the settlement we 
commemorate has brought to the nation in which we 
all find safety and protection; and, uninterrupted by 
differences in religious faith, let us, under the guid- 
ance of the genius of Toleration and Equality, here 
consecrate ourselves more fully than ever to united 
and devoted labor in the field of our common nation’s 
advancement and exaltation. 


[17] 


LETTER FROM PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 


Wasuineton, November 16, 1905. 

My Dear Sir: I am forced to make a rule not to 
write letters on the occasion of any celebration, no 
matter how important, simply because I cannot write 
one without either committing myself to write hun- 
‘dreds of others or else running the risk of giving 
offense to worthy persons. I make an exception in 
this case because the lamentable and terrible suffering 
to which so many of the Jewish people in other lands 
have been subjected, makes me feel it my duty, as the 
head of the American people, not only to express my 
deep sympathy for them, as I now do, but at the same 
time to point out what fine qualities of citizenship have 
been displayed by the men of Jewish faith and race, 
who, having come to this country, enjoy the benefits 
of free institutions and equal treatment before the 
law. I feel very strongly that if any people are op- 
pressed anywhere, the wrong inevitably reacts in the 
end on those who oppress them; for it is an immutable 
law in the spiritual world that no one can wrong 
others and yet in the end himself escape unhurt. 

The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth an- 
niversary of the settlement of the Jews in the United 
States properly emphasizes a series of historical facts 
of more than merely national significance. Even in 
our colonial period the Jews participated in the up- 
building of this country, acquired citizenship, and 
took an active part in the development of foreign and 
domestic commerce. During the Revolutionary pe- 
riod they aided the cause of liberty by serving in the 


[18 J 


Continental army, and by substantial contributions 
to the empty treasury of the infant Republic. Dur- 
ing the Civil War, thousands served in the armies 
and mingled their blood with the soil for which they 
fought. I am glad to be able to say, in addressing 
you on this occasion, that while the Jews of the United 
States, who now number more than a million, have re- 
mained loyal to their faith and their race traditions, 
they have become indissolubly incorporated in the 
great army of American citizenship, prepared to make 
all sacrifice for the country, either in war or peace, 
and striving for the perpetuation of good government 
and for the maintenance of the principles embodied 
in our Constitution. They are honorably distin- 
guished by their industry, their obedience to law, and 
their devotion to the national welfare. They are en- 
gaged in generous rivalry with their fellow-citizens 
of other denominations in advancing the interests of 
our common country. This is true not only of the 
descendants of the early settlers and those of Ameri- 
can birth, but of a great and constantly increasing 
proportion of those who have come to our shores within 
the last twenty-five years as refugees reduced to the 
direst straits of penury and misery. All Americans 
may well be proud of the extraordinary illustration 
of the wisdom and strength of our governmental sys- 
tem thus afforded. In a few years, men and women 
hitherto utterly unaccustomed to any of the privileges 
of citizenship have moved mightily upward toward 
the standard of loyal, self-respecting American citi- 
zenship; of that citizenship which not merely insists 
upon its rights, but also eagerly recognizes its duty 


[19 ] 


to do its full share in the material, social, and moral 
advancement of the nation. 
With all good wishes, believe me, 
Sincerely yours, 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 


Jacos H. Scuirr, Ese., Chairman. 


[ 20 ] 


TELEGRAM FROM VICE-PRESIDENT 
FAIRBANKS 


Wasuincton, D. C., November 30, 1905. 


Hon. Jacos H. Scuirr, 965 Fifth. Avenue, New 
York: 


My Dear Mr. Scuirr: I greatly regret my in- 
ability to participate with you to-day in celebrating 
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Jews 
in America. The event is one which we may all take 
pleasure in observing with appropriate ceremony, for 
the Jewish people have contributed and are contribut- 
ing their full measure to our national growth and 
strength. They are enamored of our institutions and 
are a part of that loyal, intelligent, conservative citi- 
zenship which constitutes the stay and support of the 
great Republic. Our hearts are filled with gratitude 
in this hour of national thanksgiving that Jew and 
Gentile enjoy absolute political equality, and dwell 
together in amity and good fellowship throughout the 
limits of the United States. Here they entertain for 
each other a high degree of respect and good will, 
and rejoice in their common national inheritance. 
They are alike profoundly touched by the atrocities 
inflicted upon the Jews in Russia. They are moved 
by a common fraternal impulse to make their protest 
against this master crime of modern times, and send 
their aid and sympathy to those in sore distress. I 
entertain the confident hope that the Jews in America 
may continue to enjoy the fullest possible measure of 


[21] 


prosperity and happiness, and that freedom in our 
common country may forever continue to bless both 
Jew and Gentile. 
Very respectfully yours, 
Cuaries W. Farrpanks. 


[ 22] 


ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR HIGGINS 


It affords me great pleasure to be present to-day, 
to congratulate you upon this significant celebration 
and to testify to my appreciation of the services ren- 
dered to civilization by the American Jew. Birth- 
days and anniversaries are worth keeping only as 
they mark growth and progress. Mere growing old 
in men and nations brings but the pathetic recollec- 
tion of departed glories. Our Jewish fellow-citizens 
have a right to boast that under the protecting shield 
of equal rights they have taken no steps backward in 
the long and weary years that have rolled by since 
they first obtained from the Dutch West India Com- 
pany “* permission to sail and to trade in New Neth- 
erlands, and to live and remain there.”? Since that 
noteworthy grant of privilege, the Jews have fled 
from edicts of exclusion, from despotism and perse- 
cution, from poverty, misery, and social degradation, 
to the shores of America and found here a refuge 
where the rights of man are determined not by his 
race or religion, but by his honesty, industry, and 
character. Spaniard and Portuguese, Pole and Rus- 
sian, English and German, have come to obtain the 
blessings of freedom and to give in return a loyal 
support to our institutions and strength to their new 
country. In this free atmosphere, all that a man can 
fairly ask or receive is a man’s chance in the struggle 
for existence. The man who can toil, who can make 
present sacrifices for future gain, who can practice 
thrift until he can afford to be liberal, who can eman- 
cipate himself from “ those twin jailers of the human 


[ 23 ] 


race, low birth and iron fortune,” will leave behind 
in the race for success the lover of ease and pleasure, 
the man with his eye on the clock, the spendthrift 
and the sport. 

To be poor, wretched, and miserable is to our civi- 
lization either a misfortune or a disgrace, not, as in 
lands of privilege and class distinction, a necessary 
evil. As every soldier in Napoleon’s army carried a 
marshal’s baton in his knapsack, so in America every 
self-respecting citizen aspires to financial independ- 
ence and political and social honors. 

It is not to be wondered at that the Jews, with their 
marvelous history of intellectual achievement, with 
their natural moral strength, with their philanthropic 
and charitable impulses, have flourished and waxed 
great in this quarter millennium of abundant opportu- 
nity. 

We cherish a just and proper pride of ancestry. 
The New England Society, the Holland Society, and 
other associations formed to honor the pioneer fathers, 
serve a useful purpose. Our religious denominations 
teach in many ways the lesson of serving God. But 
in America we have no place for him who is prouder 
of his foreign descent than of his own Americanism, 
nor for him to whom religion means intolerance and 
self-satisfied isolation from his fellow-men of differ- 
ing faith. Loyal as we may be to fatherland and 
mother church, we owe our first and firmest allegiance 
to the flag which is the symbol of our great and com- 
mon country. This nation cannot long endure if our 
citizens consider only their opportunities, and forget 
their obligations to the state and their fellow-men. 


[ 24 ] 


In these days of greed and the lust of gain, when man 
too often struggles to heap up riches with little heed 
to the restraints of moral or civil law, when success 
seems to justify the means, when respect for the 
rights of others and regard for the feelings of others 
give place to a sordid selfishness, we must not forget 
that a nation can be great and noble only as its people 
are a great and noble people, and that the character 
of a nation is determined by the characters of those 
it honors. 

The Jew has cheerfully accepted the moral obliga- 
tion imposed on all who seek the benefit of American 
citizenship. Not only in financial circles, but also in 
military and civil life, in science, art, literature, and 
the learned professions he has served his adopted 
country with fidelity and zeal. 

Proud of his descent from Moses and the prophets 
and the lawgivers of old, he has an equal pride in his 
American citizenship. As his ancestral religion teaches 
him the obligations of the ancient domestic virtues, 
so his citizenship teaches him the duties of service 
to the state and to his fellow-men. We may safely 
place on his shoulders the responsibility for handing 
down unimpaired, to his children and his children’s 
children, the priceless heritage of American liberty. 


[ 25 ] 


ADDRESS BY MAYOR McCLELLAN 


Mr. Cuarrman, Lapies, AnD GENTLEMEN: If the 
Pilgrim Fathers, whose advent we commemorate, were 
to return to us, they would not be surprised at the 
wonderful progress made and the position attained by 
their children, but they would be astounded at the 
marvelous increase in the numbers of their coreligion- 
ists in the United States, and especially in the city 
of New York. 

It is fitting that, as the mayor of the largest single 
municipality on earth, and especially as the chief 
magistrate of the largest single Jewish community 
that the world has ever seen, I should be with you 
to-day to express to you on behalf not only of my 
seven hundred thousand Jewish fellow-citizens, but 
on behalf of my four millions of fellow-citizens of all 
races and creeds, their sincere congratulations and 
good wishes, their satisfaction for what you have 
accomplished in the past and are accomplishing in 
the present, and their hope for what, side by side in 
unity with other races and creeds, you will accomplish 
for the United States in the future. 

There are those who sincerely fear that if the enor- 
mous immigration of non-English-speaking peoples is 
permitted to continue, it will menace the very institu- 
tions of our country. I do not share that fear. The 
United States needs a vastly greater population for 
its development, and can easily support half a bil- 
lion people properly distributed. 

We members of the Caucasian family are very much 
like one another, without regard to what branch of 


[ 26 ] 


that family we may belong. Deny a man the ordi- 
nary human rights of life, liberty, and happiness, 
forbid him to worship God in his own way, deprive 
him of the possibility of an education, harry him, 
worry him, oppress him, persecute him, and it is small 
wonder if the brute in him dominates the man. Can 
you blame him if, upon his first taste of freedom, he 
confounds license with liberty? Can we blame him if, 
upon his first glimpse of freedom, he is inclined to 
follow the teachings of the first demagogue who 
preaches anarchy, and who promises Utopia at the 
expense of existing law and order? Hunger and ig- 
norance cover a multitude of sins. 

But give that man the right to work out his salva- 
tion in his own way, to worship God as he pleases; 
protect him in the enjoyment of his rights as a man; 
give him the rudiments of an education, give him the 
possibility of earning a man’s wage for a man’s work; 
and whether he comes from the mountains of Galicia, 
the steppes of Russia, or the purlieus of Whitechapel, 
you will find that the good red blood in him pulsates 
in the heart of a man made in God’s image. 

Every man who comes to this country, groping, 
however blindly, for the light of freedom, struggling, 
however impotently, for the betterment of his condi- 
tion and the uplifting of his soul, has in him the 
making of a good citizen of our country, if we only 
do our duty by him. 

There are two duties which we owe the incoming 
immigrant. One is a duty which cannot be performed 
by government without socialism, and that has no 
place in American institutions: It is the duty of try- 


[27 ] 


ing to prevent congestion in the labor market, or 
trying to distribute the incoming immigrants where 
they are needed, and not permitting them to remain 
where the labor market is glutted. This is a duty 
which should be undertaken by every citizen of this 
country, for it appeals to every one of us, 

The other duty is one which government must un- 
dertake, and which the government, with the support 
of the people, has cheerfully undertaken: it is the 
duty of education. Something can be done with the 
older immigrants by education; everything can be 
done with the young generation, with the children. 
They must be taught to read and write, and, what is 
more important, to think in English; and if we do 
that, we break down the barriers of nationality, and 
we teach them to think in the language of our com- 
mon country. 

Mr. Chairman, a great cloud has settled over your 
race. The whole civilized world has been horrified 
by the atrocities of the last few months in Russia. 
Your happiness in this celebration has been turned 
to sorrow, your joy to sadness; but in your grief you 
have had the heartfelt sympathy of all the people of 
this country; your grief has been shared by us, your 
sorrow has become our own, and in the dark night of 
Russia there is just this one ray of light. Your co- 
religionists who come to us, driven from their homes 
by the sword of the oppressor, those who come to us 
—as many are bound to do—will come to a land ready 
to give them welcome, ready to extend to them the 
sympathy of man to his fellow in distress. They will 
come to us predisposed to assimilate with us; they 


[ 28 ] 


will come to us ready to be absorbed into our body poli- 
tic. If the sharing of your grief by all the eighty 
millions of Americans, if the sympathy and the hu- 
man kindness that grief has called forth, serve to bind 
more closely together the heterogeneous elements of 
this nation into one homogeneous whole, serve to has- 
ten the accomplishment of our destiny in the creation 
of an American race, destined to lead the world in 
righteousness, in justice, and in honor, then those who 
received the martyr’s crown in Russia will not have 
died in vain. 


[29] 


ORATION BY JUDGE MAYER SULZBERGER 


But a few brief months have flown since we planned 
this great day of memorial and rejoicing, and lo! 
such are the mutations of time, our festival is turned 
into mourning. The placid note of satisfaction is 
drowned in the shrill whistle of the assassins’ bullets 
and the frenzied shrieks of countless victims. But 
though crime and death stalk abroad in the world, the 
business of life must go on. Within the broad reaches 
of eternity there is time for all things. There is, says 
the wise king, “ A time to weep, and a time to laugh; 
a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to keep 
silence, and a time to speak; a time of war, and a 
time of peace.” 

Confronted with the appalling Russian tragedy, 
we have refrained from speech and have striven and 
now strive with might and main to relieve suffering. 
But the week of first mourning is past, the dead are 
buried, and in the more sedate manner of the Shloshim 
or secondary mourning of the month, we must, with 
such composure as we may, celebrate our memorial day. 

In lieu of mirth and gayety, we consecrate the day 
to lofty and holy purpose. Let us here highly re- 
solve that by speech, by writing, by act and deed we 
shall so work that the cause of human liberty and 
human rights shall be advanced all the world over, 
and that we shall not rest until the great empire of 
Russia shall be free and ennobled, in that day when 
Jews and Catholics and Protestants and all men shall 
enjoy equal rights before the law, and that law one 
of justice and of right. 


[ 80 ] 


Just two hundred and fifty years ago the Jewish 
pilgrim fathers landed on Manhattan’s shores. Like 
those other pilgrim fathers who founded Plymouth, 
they fled from religious persecution, the former from 
the English, the latter from the Portuguese. Both 
sought refuge with the Dutch. In Holland, the little 
country built up by the mud and silt which the Rhine 
brought down from the German highlands, the re- 
ligious liberty of the modern world was born. Amid 
griefs and throes inexpressible the harried victims 
of Spanish bigotry and cruelty declared by “the 
Union of Utrecht,” in the fateful year 1579, that 
every individual should remain free in his religion, 
and that no man should be molested or questioned on 
the subject of divine worship; words, these, which 
have become commonplaces of civilization, but which 
at their declaration fell meaningless on the ears of 
a deaf world. Catholics were being persecuted in 
Great Britain, Huguenots in France, Lutherans in 
Germany, and Jews looked upon sufferance as natural. 
England, France, Spain, and Portugal excluded 
them. Bigotry and cruelty were the public law of 
the times. 

The mighty line of Marlowe, and the myriad mind 
of Shakespeare but reflected the intolerance which 
obsessed the European world. 

In high relief against this dark background stands 
out the august figure of the Prince of Orange, Will- 
iam the Silent, that one prototype among the world’s 
rulers of our own Washington and Lincoln. He alone, 
to use the language of Motley, seems to have risen 
to the height of thoroughly comprehending the mean- 


[ 31 ] 


ing of religious freedom. Principal director of the 
movement which was the foundation stone of the 
Netherland Republic, his familiar title of “ Father 
William ” is true in the double sense that he was as 
well the father of his country as of religious liberty 
in the Western world. 

Upon this star rising in the North, the Portuguese 
maranos fixed their longing eyes. For a hundred 
years they had been oppressed, impoverished, impris- 
oned, burned, expelled for their constancy to the re- 
ligion of their forefathers. With the outward seem- 
ing of Catholics they cherished an intense attachment 
to Judaism, risking in its cause even life itself. They 
showed the spectacle of a church whose members 
cherished for their country and their God a love so 
fervent and so equal that they could not abandon one 
for the other, but bore the pangs of martyrdom in 
the pathetic endeavor to hold fast to both. But even 
this position, sad as it was, became worse when Portu- 
gal, in 1580, came under the domination of Philip of 
Spain, who but four years later was to inspire the 
assassination of William the Silent and to earn for 
himself a heritage of perpetual infamy. He issued 
new orders against the maranos, and having rendered 
it impracticable for them to live in peace at home, 
refined his cruelty by forbidding them to emigrate 
abroad. The desire to leave his dominions became an 
overmastering passion, and in the year 1593 the first 
colony reached Amsterdam. The Netherlands were 
engaged in a fight for life with Philip of Spain. Na- 
tional patriotism, love for the Reformed religion, and 
dread of the Inquisition powerfully united to inspire 


[ 82 ] 


them with suspicion, fear, and hatred of Philip’s 
Spanish subjects. The poor maranos, externally in- 
distinguishable from Spanish Catholics, had to walk 
warily for safety. Thanks to the new light, their 
first serious adventure savored more of comedy than 
of the tragedy which had so long relentlessly pur- 
sued them. One of their early Yom Kippur gather- 
ings was suspected to be a conventicle of Crypto- 
Catholics, pseudo-Inquisitors, or what not, and the 
poor maranos brought before the tribunal experi- 
enced the delicious novelty of finding their avowal of 
Judaism to be a shield and buckler. 

There was another happening in Amsterdam, in 
the year 1593, concerning which no looker-on could 
have foretold how big with future events it was. The 
Jews had entered the city in the month of April of 
that year. On the sixth day of that same month Bar- 
low and Greenwood, early Puritan leaders, were 
hanged in London, and their congregation impris- 
oned. The little church emigrated, and before the 
close of the year the fugitives arrived at Amsterdam. 
In 1620 there went forth from this tiny beginning 
the Puritan company that was by way of England 
to lay firm the foundations of New England on the 
rock of Plymouth. 

It was no mere coincidence that “The Jew of 
Malta ” was written in 1590 and “ The Merchant of 
Venice” in 1594. Religious hatred and the correla- 
tive contempt for religious freedom spoke also in 
plain prose. Bishop Hall, one of the most liberal prel- 
ates of the next age, contemned Amsterdam as “a 
common harbor of all opinions, of all heresies,” “ an 


[ 33 ] 


odious composition of Judaism, Arianism, Anabap- 
tism.” 

The offense for which these brave Puritans suf- 
fered was called “ sedition,” and it consisted in this, 
that they held it to be the duty of all true Christians 
to separate themselves from the official church and 
to form congregations apart, and that they advo- 
cated complete religious liberty, denying the right of 
the state to interfere with the conscience. 

Jews and Puritans thus settled in Holland looked 
back with longing to their kindred left behind in in- 
hospitable homes. The Puritans negotiated for a 
settlement under the Dutch on the Hudson, and the 
Jews sent a colony of six hundred to Brazil in 1642. 
The Puritans abandoned their new Netherland scheme 
and thereby founded New England, while the Bra~- 
zilian Jewish colony, broken up by the Portuguese 
conquest of that country, led to the first Jewish 
settlement in the United States on this island, 
which has become the metropolis of the great 
nation. 

In September, 1654, twenty-three Brazilian fugi- 
tives arrived at New Amsterdam on the good ship 
Saint Catarina. The South American refuge had 
lasted only twelve years, and now again they were 
fleeing from Portuguese intolerance to Dutch free- 
dom. The place to which they came was not what it 
isnow. In 1653, what we call the State of New York, 
had but two thousand white inhabitants—was, let us 
say, about equal to our Jewish colony at Woodbine, 
whereas the population of the present city of New 
York was but eight hundred. The currency in vogue 


[ 34] 


was wampum, beads made from shells, valued accord- 
ing to color. 

The governor of this little country was a strong- 
headed, brave, but irascible Dutch soldier. He had 
served in the West Indies, had been Governor of Cu- 
racao, and had all the love of power which its abso- 
lute exercise, free from the supervision of superiors, 
engenders. When he arrived here in 1647, at the age 
of forty-five, Stuyvesant marched with great pomp 
from the vessel to the port, notwithstanding or per- 
haps because of his wooden leg bound with silver 
bands. He soon asserted vice-regal authority, and 
gave every one to understand that an appeal from 
any decision of his would be punished by the appel- 
lant’s death. In other respects he was a vigorous and 
efficient ruler, and his consciousness of this only 
heightened the asperity of his disposition when his 
subjects in 1653 demanded and obtained a consider- 
able measure of political freedom. Besides internal 
troubles, he had difficulties to settle with the natives, 
with the English on the east, with the Swedes on 
the Delaware. Worst of all, he felt himself as a kind 
of pope, responsible for the proper religious attitude 
of his community, which he held to be possible only 
by strict conformity to the tenets and practices of the 
Dutch Reformed Church. On this principle he con- 
scientiously persecuted Lutherans, Baptists, and 
Quakers, until the remonstrances of the people, sup- 
ported by the company, compelled him to desist. 

The arrival of a ship from a Latin country, with 
a group of strangers dark of complexion, associated 
in the mind with Catholicism, not even Christians, 


[ 35 | 


certainly not Dutch Reformed Christians, affected the 
mind of Stuyvesant unpleasantly. He ordered them 
to leave the colony, which for a man of his type meant 
simply that he was against letting them settle in New 
Netherlands. 

At this day such notions appall us. In order, how- 
ever, to do justice to the men of the past, we must 
consider the atmosphere in which they lived. The 
most ghastly atrocities for religion’s sake were then 
fresh and familiar. Chmielnitzki, with his Cossacks, 
had just perpetrated his horrid cruelties against Po- 
land, in the course of which more than three hundred 
thousand Jews had been ruthlessly massacred. The 
dreadful Thirty Years’ War had but now ended in the 
Peace of Westphalia—a war of religious antipathies 
between Christian and Christian, in which millions of 
human beings perished by the sword and by hunger, 
and in which all Germany had lost half its population 
and two-thirds of its movable property. 

The new age was just dawning. At last Germany 
had learned that opposing religious parties must tol- 
erate each other. Dormido, ruined by the Dutch loss 
of Brazil, was petitioning Cromwell for the free ad- 
mission of the Jews into England; and in our own 
land the Providence Plantations, under the charter 
obtained by Roger Williams, were laying broad and 
deep the foundations of religious liberty. 

It was not in the character of Stuyvesant to dis- 
cern or to welcome the impending changes, and though 
more liberality could fairly be expected of a Dutch- 
man than of another, we must not judge the provin- 
cial governor’s intolerance too severely. Even at 


[ 36 ] 


home in Holland the doctrines of William the Silent 
had not been fully realized in practice. There had 
been bitter conflicts on obscure points of theology— 
conflicts in which good men perished. Doctrines are 
a kind of organism. In their beginnings they do but 
express potentialities. 'Time is needed to bring them 
to their full growth. The cardinal principle that 
the conscience is free, had to be learned slowly. The 
narrowness of Stuyvesant was controlled by the lib- 
erality of the governing company. In the words of 
Bancroft: “ If Stuyvesant sometimes displayed the 
rash despotism of a soldier, he was sure to be reproved 
by his employers. Did he change the rate of duties 
arbitrarily, the directors, sensitive to commercial 
honor, charged him to keep every contract inviolate. 
Did he tamper with the currency by raising the nomi- 
nal value of foreign coin, the measure was rebuked 
as dishonest. Did he attempt to fix the price of labor 
by arbitrary rules, this also was condemned as unwise 
and impracticable. Did he interfere with the mer- 
' chants by inspecting their accounts, the deed was 
censured as without precedent ‘in Christendom ’; 
and he was ordered to ‘ treat the merchants with kind- 
ness, lest they return and the country be depopu- 
lated.’ Did his zeal for Calvinism lead him to per- 
secute Lutherans, he was chided for his bigotry. Did 
his hatred of ‘the abominable sect of Quakers’ im- 
prison and afterwards exile the blameless Bowne, “let 
every peaceful citizen,’ wrote the directors, ‘ enjoy 
freedom of conscience. This maxim has made our 
ety the asylum for fugitives from every land. Tread 
in its steps and you shall be blessed.’ ” 


[ 87 ] 


And we may add that when Stuyvesant was minded 
to exclude the Jewish immigrants, he was instructed 
that his course “ would be unreasonable and unfair,” 
and that “ they shall have permission to sail to and 
trade in New Netherlands and to live and remain 
there, provided the poor among them shall not be- 
come a burden to the company or the community, but 
be supported by their own nation.” And again he 
received directions in favor of Jewish settlers, es- 
pecially providing that they should enjoy all the civil 
and political rights in New Netherlands which were 
accorded them in Amsterdam. 

The liberal sentiments of the company were due 
not so much to the capital which the Jews of Am- 
sterdam had invested in its shares, or to the fact, if 
fact it be, that they were represented in the direc- 
torate, as to the broadening influence of world com- 
merce in itself. The continual communication and 
contact, for one specific purpose, of peoples of differ- 
ent countries, races, religions, and politics, tend to fix 
the attention on the object to be attained; and when 
it is perceived that the natural qualities of men are 
surprisingly similar, the sense of aloofness which sur- 
vives in men from the feelings of their early prehis- 
toric ancestors is sensibly lessened. Whatever may 
be said of the moral standards of commercialism, there 
can be no doubt of the high moral value of commerce. 
To it more than to any other single agency may be 
attributed the wide diffusion of more active senti- 
ments of fellowship between the inhabitants of differ- 
ent countries. 

At the period of the Jewish settlement of New 


[ 88 ] 


Netherlands the latter was a Dutch wedge driven in 
between the English colonies of the North and those 
of the South. That the Jews who landed here 
doubted the hospitality of the English colonies is 
highly probable, and hence it was no mere accident 
that Jews settled in Newport in 1655. In their New 
Amsterdam home they must soon have learned that 
one of the English colonies stood for the principle 
of religious freedom with at least as much earnest- 
ness and zeal as the Dutch themselves. The name of 
Roger Williams was not strange in New Netherlands. 
Years before, he had successfully mediated between 
the Dutch and their inflamed Indian neighbors. 
Moreover, the Jews had still another cause to love 
him. During his stay in England, the question of 
the Jews’ readmission being then mooted, he wrote 
these noble words: “I humbly conceive it to be the 
duty of the civil magistrate to break down that su- 
perstitious wall of separation (as to civil things) be- 
tween us Gentiles and the Jews, and freely (without 
this asking) to make way for their free and peaceable 
habitation amongst us.” Sentiments such as these 
amply account for the fact that the Jewish settle- 
ment at Newport followed hard upon that of New 
Amsterdam. 

The development of the United States during the 
two hundred and fifty years following the settlement 
of our Pilgrims has aroused the wonder and admira- 
tion of the world. More than eighty millions of free 
people now inhabit the land, which then held a mere 
handful; myriads of farms are cultivated on what 
were forests and waste lands; hundreds of thousands 


[ 89 ] 


of miles of iron roads have replaced Indian trails and 
rude highways; palaces without number for resi- 
dences, factories, and stores, have risen instead of a 
few rude huts and cabins; countless ships of unim- 
agined splendor carry on the traffic in necessaries and 
luxuries, where a few birch-bark canoes sufficed for 
the bare wants of the hardy colonists; personal com- 
fort, safety, and happiness have increased manifold; 
education has advanced in quality and has been dif- 
fused so as to become general; the products of our 
country are distributed among its people, and a large 
surplus goes to add to the comfort of other nations, 
and to bring to us in exchange therefor the fruits of 
their industries. And above and beyond all, the rep- 
resentatives of many countries and races live together 
in amity and harmony with the single mind to add to 
the greatness of the nation, the happiness of its peo- 
ple, and the betterment of mankind. Civic differences 
we settle by the peaceful war of ballots; religious, 
by the truce of God which forbids any man to ques- 
tion another’s conscientious belief. Without vain- 
glory or boasting, but with reasoned humility and 
gratitude for bounties enjoyed, we may apply to our 
own great and glorious country the words of the 
heathen prophet concerning Israel, “‘ What hath God 
wrought! ” 

Nor have these mercies been singular to our own 
land. In the distant East the sun of a higher civiliza- 
tion is rising, and even the dark continent sees a great 
light. For the teeming millions of Asia there is hope 
of a brighter and more glorious future, and in the 
wastes and jungles of Africa there is preparing a 


[ 40 ] 


new refuge for countless hosts. Would that we might 
send the voice of gladness and gratulation to every 
corner of the globe! Alas! it may not be. 

The giant empire of the Muscovite is aflame. The 
torch of the incendiary and the blood of the righteous 
envelop it in a red mist of nameless horrors. The 
sons of freedom perish for their country’s cause, and 
Israel is in the van of suffering. He is the man of 
sorrows, inured to grief, wounded for the transgres- 
sions of others, bruised for their iniquities; he is 
brought as a lamb to the slaughter; he bears the sin 
of the many, and yet makes intercession for the trans- 
gressor. 

The appalling suffering of the five million Jews of 
Russia during the last quarter of a century is a last- 
ing stain upon the fair fame of our age. A corrupt 
and imbecile autocracy, in order to perpetuate itself, 
has perpetrated crimes which shame human nature. 
It has suppressed initiative and hindered education, 
has extinguished free activity and thought, has plun- 
dered the poor, robbed the sick, outraged the help- 
less, and hounded to death or exile the flower of Rus- 
sian citizenship. To the voice of civilization it has 
turned a deaf ear, and, drunk with power, has arro- 
gantly defied the protests of the great powers and the 
aroused conscience of the world. The measure of its 
iniquity was full, when lo! the word of the Lord 
came to the small island empire of the Orient, say- 
ing: “Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, and 
prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord 
God, I am against thee, O Gog, and I will turn thee 
about and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring 


[ 41 ] 


thee forth and all thine army, horses and horsemen. 
Thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled 
villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that 
dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and 
having neither bars nor gates, to take a spoil, to take 
a prey. And it shall come to pass, saith the Lord 
God, that my fury shall come up in thy face. I will 
call for a sword against him throughout all my moun- 
tains; I will plead against him with pestilence and 
with blood. They shall know that I am the Lord.” 

Blow upon blow fell upon the cruel giant, and yet 
Pharaoh-like, he would not let the people go. Rather 
did he tear and rend the helpless and the innocent, 
until at last the mighty power of revolution forced 
the concession that the people of the land have an in- 
terest and a right in its government—a concession 
which, though given parsimoniously, without heart 
and in doubtful faith, seems the forerunner of a sane 
and civilized government. But, alas for the wicked, 
even their good acts seem smitten with a curse. The 
minions of the foul system of autocracy have deluged 
the land with the blood of its truest and best citizens. 
Students, filled with youthful and generous ardor for 
liberty, thinkers hoping for and rejoicing in a new 
Arcadia, Jews shouting the pean of freedom, have 
gone to their death in ruthless, indiscriminate mas- 
sacre. And the mighty Czar, who but the other day 
spat in the face of civilization, cowers for safety be- 
hind the blood-red figure of Trepoff, the assassin of 
women and children. 

Let no man despair. The guardian of Israel 
neither sleepeth nor slumbereth. Out of this wreck- 


[ 42 ] 


age and confusion, this tohu va-bohu, there shall 
emerge a new Russia, free and regenerate, as power- 
ful for good as it has hitherto been for evil, a Russia 
of noble men and women enlisted in the cause of civ- 
ilization and progress. 

The nations shall call her to a place by their side, 
and together they will begin a new advance to the 
better. In that day the name of the autocracy and 
its minions shall be utterly blotted out and pass from 
the memory of man. In a merciful oblivion shall 
these stains on the fair surface of humanity be wiped 
out. 

Two hundred and fifty years ago, at the beginning 
of the period whose ending we celebrate, there rang 
in the ears of our Pilgrim Fathers the plaintive melo- 
dies of the requiem Kaddish for the myriad victims 
of Russian massacre. Alas! that after this long lapse 
of time these infamies should by a kind of diabolic 
rhythm be repeated. But though joy be turned into 
mourning, let not hope degenerate to despair. De- 
spite wrong and cruelty, suffering and calamity, the 
world yet moves, and from progress toward better 
days its course will not be swerved. Amid the terror 
and the carnage of the siege of Jerusalem, with the 
roar in his ears of the falling of the giant temple walls, 
Johanan ben Zakkai manfully addressed himself to 
the task of repair and rebuilding, founded the acad- 
emy at Jamnia, and saved Judaism. 

So we, in the midst of this horrible catastrophe, 
must not lose our bearings. Not only has the area 
of persecution been narrowed in the last two hun- 
dred and fifty years, but the sphere of civilization 


[ 43 ] 


has grown wider, and the quality of humanity has be- 
come finer and more intensified. The feelings of hor- 
ror and reproach which move the whole Western 
world are due to a genuine amelioration of manners, 
a true advance in free thought and respect for dis- 
senting opinions. The good will and sense of jus- 
tice of the civilized world are our main reliance, and 
in them we may hopefully trust. 

That there are shadows in this picture it were vain 
to deny; that here, there, and everywhere minorities 
are offended, ridiculed, even injured, is true; that 
Jews, as the universal minority, suffer more than 
others, may be admitted. This proves not that civi- 
lization does not advance, but that it advances slowly, 
and intermittently halts or even recedes. We, the 
heirs of the ages, looking back sadly and proudly 
to our historic past, look forward sadly and proudly to 
our historic future. When the whole world was steeped 
in polytheism and immorality, our ancestors raised 
the banner of pure religion and morality. Now that 
our moral creed has become the universal heritage, 
our mission to press forward is none the less urgent. — 
At every point in the world’s progress there are times, 
places, and opinions which are desert spots in the 
advance of mankind, and from these there must ever 
be the march forward to the horizon land of Canaan, 
where the milk and honey of truth and goodness and 
happiness are purer than in the regions left behind. 
The quest is endless, because the glory of humanity 
is its noble discontent with the achieved, its high- 
hearted search for the unattainable. 

We of this blessed land have peculiar causes for 


[ 44 ] 


thankfulness, high incentives for heroic exertion. 
Here have been gathered from all lands the free of 
soul, the undaunted of purpose. To no mere accident 
of soil or climate can be ascribed our amazing stature. 
The free institutions of our country, the generous- 
mindedness of our citizens, their great-heartedness, 
their majestic reposefulness, their colossal energy— 
these are the true springs of our greatness. 

And of this noble land we are citizens, free and 
equal. So high a position entails high duties. Lazy 
indulgence in good things freely attainable, selfish de- 
votion to mere individual aggrandizement, these, while 
in a way contributing to the general wealth and 
prosperity, are but paltry factors in national great- 
ness. If we keep not before our eyes the true object 
of the state—justice to all, the true objective of the 
individual, the heightening of the general ideal—we 
do not contribute our full share to make our country 
a shining light to the peoples of the earth. Duty to 
the nation is best performed by rearing it on the 
foundation duties which we perform to our State, to 
our church, to our city, to our neighbor. 

The liberty of this country demands of no man that 
he abandon his conscientious convictions; the rather 
it exhorts all to stand by them. Not in a lifeless 
monotony of opinion will we find a nation nearing 
the goal, but in a happy diversity which fuses into 
a glorious harmony. 

The Jews of this country comprise diverse ele- 
ments. Russian and Roumanian persecutions have 
for the last quarter of a century driven to our shores 
those who risked all rather than bear indignities un- 


[ 45 ] 


endurable by the high-hearted. Newcomers have star- 
tled us by their strange garb and speech, and there 
were not a few among us who at first recurred to that 
primitive mode of thought which holds all that is 
strange to be odious. Queer tragi-comedy! A Gold- 
win Smith and a Treitschke, from the height of their 
university watchtower, see in the approach of a Jew- 
ish Englishman or a Jewish German the same cause 
for alarm as thrills the nerves of a Sergius or a Plehve 
at the approach of a Jewish Russian. And so it 
is that the universal learning of the first two and 
the universal ignorance of the latter, equally leave 
room for an emotion of mere repulsion inherited from 
the remote prehistoric instinct that seeks a weapon at 
the sight of a stranger. Despite the persistence of 
this primitive feeling in mankind, every day tends 
more and more to weaken it. We who are the most 
conspicuous sufferers from it should signalize our- 
selves by our freedom from it. Happily, the day for 
such narrowness is passing, if not past. 

It had seemed reasonable to hope that this might 
be an occasion auspicious for foreshadowing projects 
of larger usefulness for ourselves and our country, 
which the Jews of the United States are called upon 
to take up and carry out. The disastrous occur- 
rences in Russia, however, demand immediate and un- 
remitting attention. Whatever may be done to bind 
up the wounds must be done; whatever may be done 
to stop the massacres must be done; whatever may 
be done to relieve the surviving bulk of Russian 
Jewry must be done. 

All narrow and scholastic differences must now be 


[ 46 ] 


ignored. Whatever be the agency of relief, bid it 
welcome, whether it come in the name of colonization, 
or Zionism, or territorialism, or what you will. All 
forces, individual and corporate, should unite to do 
what is possible in the face of this great calamity. 

In the meanwhile do not despair of Russia. The 
officials everywhere are the creatures of the autocracy 
which is passing, and though they may by assassina- 
tions and robberies and mob violence seek to stop the 
onward march toward freedom, they are foredoomed 
to fail. The day will come when that great empire, 
aroused from its lethargy, will contain a free, pros- 
perous, and happy people. Alas! before the final 
achievement there must be much misery and blood- 
shed. While the period of terror lasts, it is our 
duty to help all we may to secure protection and ref- 
uge for the victims. We may not soothe ourselves 
with the anodyne of hope that there will be no further 
use for our assistance; nor should we stay our hand 
for a moment in endeavoring to influence a change 
for the better in Russia itself. 

At the head of our nation stands its most illustrious 
citizen, illustrious in character, in achievement, and 
in promise. Whatever may be done by that marvel- 
ous combination of Greatheart and Wiseman will 
surely be accomplished, and that without supplica- 
tion or importunity, but of his own motion. For us 
it is to give money, labor, sympathy, and codperation. 

And be ye well assured that when the auspicious 
hour strikes, in which the voice of civilization can be 
heard amid the din and clangor of Russian confu- 
sion, the note that will sound clearest and carry far- 


[ 47 ] 


thest will be the expression of the conscience of eighty 
millions of free Americans. We, whose ancestors bore 
their share in the mission of Columbus, who have lived 
and grown and thriven alongside our neighbors of all 
shades of belief in uninterrupted unity, may well 
reckon ourselves as of the first of Americans, bone of 
the bone and flesh of the flesh of Columbia. Our 
labors have been given, our blood shed indistinguish- 
ably with the rest of our fellow-citizens in the begin- 
nings and for the rise of the nation. Our pride, our 
hope in our country will not fail, but will gain with 
the centuries that in their passage will add new bril- 
liancy to the light of civilization and humanity. And 
as the good work goes on, we may hope that the ser- 
pent of persecution and violence, wherever hidden, 
may be found and bound; that judgment may be 
given to them that sit upon thrones to do wrong, and 
that this first quarter of the millennium, whose pas- 
sage we celebrate to-day, may expand into the full 
and complete millennium in which those who have suf- 
fered in the past may live in peace and happiness, in 
hope and safety. 


[ 48 ] 


ADDRESS BY BISHOP GREER 


When I accepted the invitation of your Chairman 
to be present and say a few words on this occasion, I 
did so very willingly, because of the deep interest 
which I have always felt in the Hebrew race and 
people, and I was glad of an opportunity to give 
public expression to it. And this, perhaps, is about 
all that I can do, as I cannot hope to add anything 
to what has been already said by those who have 
preceded me, and it would be a rash venture to try to 
anticipate what will be said by those who are to fol- 
low me, and who are far more competent than I am 
- to speak to this occasion and to rehearse your story 
to you. 

I may, however, be permitted to state why that 
story is to me so interesting and appealing. First, 
because it is so exceptional and unique, as the story 
of a race which, while it has dwelt among so many 
other races, has yet so persistently and consistently 
maintained its own racial integrity. Scattered all 
over the face of the earth, under all governments 
and in all countries, the Hebrew race has had, with- 
out a government and without a country, for nearly 
two thousand years, a cohesive nationality, which no 
disaster has destroyed, no misfortune weakened, no 
lapse of time impaired. Other nationalities in the 
history of the world, and some of them very great 
and apparently the strongest, as though they were 
destined forever to endure, have risen and run their 
course and fallen down, or fallen in, and perished and 
ceased to be. But here is a nationality which, through 


[ 49 ] 


all the changing experiences and vicissitudes of the 
centuries, has not only preserved but extended its do- 
minion, has not only survived but flourished and ad- 
vanced ; which, without losing or compromising itself, 
has nevertheless inspirited itself into nearly all the 
other nations of the world, and whose quickening and 
vital energy, as George Eliot observes, is beating to- 
day in the pulses, unnoted and uncredited, of many 
millions of people. 

And what a long muster-roll of eminent names it 
has! From Moses, the great lawgiver and Hebrew 
teacher of righteousness, to Moses Mendelssohn, the 
great philosophic thinker and apostle of Hebrew cul- 
ture; from Isaiah, the man of vision, to Spinoza, the 
God-intoxicated man; and many more of other days, 
and yet in some respects at least of scarcely lesser 
note, of those who have contributed in letters and in 
art, in philosophy and jurisprudence, philanthropy 
and religion, in science and in song, to the welfare of 
the world. For what department is there, as a Chris- 
tian writer testifies, of social or civil economy, that 
has not been and is not now illustrated and adorned 
by the unconquerable genius, the unimpaired vigor, 
the unslackened energy, the immortal youth, of this 
so ancient nation! Surely it is a story among the 
stories of the nations, exceptional and unique, and I 
wonder not at your pride in it; and although I am 
not of you, I can share it with you, reserving my 
astonishment with some impatience in it for those 
who have and feel such rancorous and churlish preju- 
dice against you. Or is it jealousy of you? That 
there have been, and that there are, unworthy, ignoble, 


[ 50 | 


and degraded Jews, no one will deny, and least of all 
you. But that is not a fact peculiar to your race. 
It is true of every race, Christian as well as Jewish. 
But there is this further fact of which you may be 
proud, that no matter how degraded the Jew may 
become, a man who loves his home, as Lord Beacons- 
field has said, is never wholly lost ; and the Jew, there- 
fore, he adds, is never wholly demoralized; for, with 
the patriarchal feeling, even in his lowest and deep- 
est degradation, still lingering about his hearth, the 
Jew loves his home. 

But the character of a people, like the character 
of a person, should not be measured by its worst, but 
rather by its best; not by the depths into which it 
has at times sunken and declined, but rather by the 
heights to which it has attained; and reckoned by 
that rule and by that standard judged, Israel’s rank 
is high. And the story of Israel’s people is the story 
of a race which from that little border-land upon the 
midland sea has been moving on and on with an in- 
exhaustible vigor, through all the ages since, cross- 
ing all the seas, touching all the lands, and all the 
many and various forms of their unfolding life, until 
it reached this land; not only here more freely its own 
destiny to fulfill, but to become thereafter a factor 
in the destiny of this land. 

No, I wonder not at your pride in it, nor that you 
are moved, not merely as loyal Jews but as patriotic 
citizens, to celebrate and keep this anniversary day 
of the first Jewish arrival, two hundred and fifty 
years ago, on these New Amsterdam shores. And yet 
it was not the first on these American shores. For 


[51 ] 


the claim has been made, and it seems to be authentic, 
that a small Jewish contingent had something to do 
with the discovery of America, and that with the 
Spanish caravels that brought Columbus here, there 
also came members of the Hebrew race and faith. 
And this leads me to speak of another reason why 
the Jewish story is to me so interesting and appeal- 
ing: Because it is the story of a persecution. And 
it was in that eventful year, when America was dis- 
covered, as Judge Daly has stated in his scholarly 
address on the Jews in North America, that the terri- 
ble persecution of the Jews in Europe began, which 
led to their expulsion from France, Spain, and Por- 
tugal, and which in its immediate effects was more 
disastrous than even the destruction of Jerusalem. 
And what a long and painful and cruel story it is! 
Yes, and what a strange one! Because it is the story 
of a persecution wrought, or at all events inspired, 
by a religious faith which claimed to have and hold 
as one of its cardinal tenets the Fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man, and which declared it to 
be the highest duty of man to love God with all his 
heart, and his neighbor as himself. It might there- 
fore be supposed, naturally and logically, that those 
who held that faith, or who professed to hold it, would 
at least be tolerant of those who held it not, because, 
although they held it not, they were still their neigh- 
bors, and, so that faith declared, closer yet—their 
brothers. But neighborhood and brotherhood, how- 
ever much they may have been recognized for others, 
furnished no protection or refuge for the Jew. From 
all such asylum or sanctuary privilege he was ex- 


[ 52 ] 


cluded, not because he was a sinner above all other 
sinners, but because he was a Jew. ‘That was the 
great and heinous crime which he would not forego, 
and others would not forget, for which he was made 
a pariah and an outcast, unshielded by the state, un- 
sheltered by the church, and with a cruel oppression 
victimized by both. Some have attempted to show 
that this was chiefly the work of the state and not so 
much of the church, and thus have tried to excuse 
at least, if not to acquit, the church. I wish it were 
true, but I cannot so read my history. I read, on 
the contrary, that the state was at times in advance 
of the church, or in advance of what was called the 
prevailing Christian opinion, in its disposition to 
grant certain rights and privileges to the Jew. I 
read, for instance, that in the year 1753 a bill was 
introduced into Parliament for the naturalization of 
all the Jews who had been three years in the king- 
dom, and that, although it passed both Houses and 
received the royal assent, there was such a virulent 
clamor and opposition to it, not only by the populace 
but also by the clergy, that the obnoxious measure 
had to be repealed. 

But this is only one of many similar cases which 
have in the record of Christendom appeared, to stain 
it and to shame it. And while, of course, there is 
and can be no apology for them, yet to the student 
of human nature there is, perhaps, some explanation 
of them. For religious toleration is an art, a fine 
and a high art, difficult to learn, and few there be 
who learn it; and even those who learn it soon pro- 
ceed to unlearn it, or else to apply it chiefly to the 


[ 53 ] 


elect, by which, of course, they mean chiefly to them- 
selves. Fleeing from the tyranny, civil and religious, 
of the mother country, the Puritan fathers came to 
find here a home, or establish here a state, where they 
might enjoy without let or hindrance that great hu- 
man privilege of a perfectly free conscience, which had 
been denied them in their other state and home. And 
they did find it, and they did enjoy it; and then pro- 
ceeded to enact that no one for the time to come 
should be admitted to the freedom of the body politic 
except such as were members of some of the Puritan 
churches within the limits of the same. Nowhere 
among the early American colonies was the principle 
of religious toleration more clearly and fully asserted, 
and for a time at least more consistently held and 
practiced, than in Rhode Island and Maryland. 
Upon that principle of religious toleration both of 
them were founded, especially Rhode Island, where, 
fleeing from the bigotry of Massachusetts Bay, Roger 
Williams had proclaimed and instilled into the people 
of those Providence Plantations his great soul-liberty 
doctrine. And yet, as Judge Daly states, while both 
those colonies started with the broadest recognition of 
the rights of conscience as the prerogative and privi- 
lege of all who should settle in them, in little more 
than a century, one construed those rights as applying 
only to Christians, and the other as only to Christians 
of a particular denomination. 

Thus do we find that even here in America, in the 
free and broad expanse of this American soil, free 
enough and broad enough for all sincere convictions, 
freedom of conscience has been a plant of slow and 


[ 54 | 


struggling growth. And yet that slow and strug- 
gling growth has had the good effect to give it deeper 
and stronger root and to make it more secure, that 
so at last it might become, as at last it has become, 
the recognized prerogative and privilege of all in 
this American land to give to all of every faith 
its glad and grateful shelter. Religious differences 
exist, and they will exist. And yet, however high the 
separating wall, it does not and it cannot wholly sepa- 
rate, because that freedom-of-conscience plant has in 
this land become, like the tribal blessing of Joseph, 
a good and fruitful bough whose branches run over 
the wall. The wall may exist, the walls do exist; 
but they are covered and adorned in this land with 
that beneficent principle of religious toleration which 
makes them not like battle walls, to garrison hostile 
camps, but rather more like garden walls, inclosing 
friendly faiths, where each may have the chance to 
freely grow and flourish, and by the fruitage which 
it bears, in character and life, in manhood and woman- 
hood, and in civic excellence, to prove and show its 
relative worth and make its value seen. 

That is the test to which the creeds should come, 
must come, and are coming—yours and mine and all; 
and to which sooner or later the nations, too, must 
come; not to the gage of battle, but rather to that 
friendly rivalry in righteousness whose peaceable 
fruits shall determine which is the stronger nation 
and which the more excellent creed. Then will all 
oppression and all persecution cease, as with us they 
have ceased. 

Hence it is that we who are of a different faith 


[ 55 ] 


can unite to-day with you in friendly and fraternal 
‘ tie, and with no other kind of rivalry than a rivalry 
in righteousness, in giving thanks to God for all the 
blessings which have come to this American land. 
And yet, in the exercise of that religious freedom 
which is enjoyed by us, we must not fail to remember 
those, our brethren far away, to whom it is denied, 
and who, through a religious and racial animosity, 
are made the hapless victims of a cruel persecution, 
which in its wanton ferocity and rancor has scarcely 
ever been surpassed even in that story, full of horrors 
as it is, from Titus to Torquemada, of the persecu- 
tion of the Jews, as though again to-day, in this en- 
lightened age, all the wild and untamed savagery that 
is latent in human nature had Jeaped upon them from 
its lair to rend them and to tear them. So that there 
is mingled with the jubilate strains of this Thanks- 
giving occasion, and this anniversary festival, the sad 
and plaintive minor tone of a Miserere cry coming 
across the waters, sounding in our ears, of men, 
women and children, yes, even little children, mothers, 
and their babes, who, although they have no grievous 
crime committed, are suffering nevertheless a great 
and grievous wrong simply because they have the 
blood of their ancestors flowing in their veins. Let 
the Russian Government beware! let the Russian peo- 
ple beware, lest, in trying to break this ancient people 
of the Lord God of Israel, they should themselves 
be broken! For while nations rise and fall, the Jew- 
ish race persists, and no weapon that is formed against 
it shall prosper. 

And so, with a story exceptional and unique among 


[ 56 ] 


the stories of the nations, the Jewish race has been 
steadily moving on, through trials and persecutions, 
cast down but not destroyed, toward that great and 
high yet still unfulfilled and undetermined destiny 
which, in the councils of Israel’s God, awaits it in the 
future. May I give to this address a concluding per- 
sonal note? Twelve years ago there was another 
great and notable assemblage in this hall. The in- 
telligence had been flashed over the country, and over 
the world, that Phillips Brooks was dead, and the 
people of this city gathered in great numbers here to 
express their affection and admiration for him. And, 
standing in the place where I am standing now, and 
speaking to an audience as large as the audience to 
which I now am speaking, and which crowded this 
hall to the doors and roof, the noblest tribute paid to 
that Christian man was by a Jewish rabbi, your hon- 
ored Dr. Gottheil. It was the recognition by one 
great man of God of another great man of God, each 
of whom in his way served Him here in this world, 
and both of whom, I doubt not, have now, in some 
other world, a clearer and a closer and a larger vision 
of Him. 


[57] 


ADDRESS BY REV. DR. H. PEREIRA 
MENDES 


What saith the Lord? What does this celebration 
mean? How would God have us understand it? 
Surely not as an occasion to indulge in mere recita- 
tion of Jewish achievement in this land during the 
last two hundred and fifty years! Surely not by 
self-congratulation because our lines have been cast 
in pleasant places, while our brethren abroad have 
met sorrow and misfortune! 

Two hundred and fifty years! A thousand years 
in God’s sight are but as yesterday, as a night-watch! 
And what are two hundred and fifty years in the 
history of the deathless nation? likened as we are 
to the stars of the heavens, the sand of the sea, the 
dust of the earth, destined therefore to be and to 
endure until those heavens vanish in vapor, and earth 
becomes old like a garment. 

When we were born, Accad and Nineveh were 
strong; Egyptian and Hittite had but begun their 
marvelous achievement. When we were young and 
in our own land, the clang of Greek arms on the plains 
of Troy woke the world to all that Hellas was to 
mean. When Romulus built Rome’s first walls, when 
Homer sang, when Greece and Persia were in death- 
grip, we heard, we beheld. Why were we the wit- 
nesses? What was God’s purpose? 

Like the stars of heaven we watched the rise and 
fall of all those nations; we saw the onrush of bar- 
baric hosts that wrecked the ancient mighty powers; 
we heard the crash when paganism fell; we marked 


[ 58 ] 


the wondrous rise of the Cross, the growth and wane 
of the Crescent, the birth and progress of the modern 
nations; we, the eternal witnesses of the Eternal God, 
stood by and watched. Wherefore? 

Like the sand of the sea, we have endured crushing 
_wave and fateful storm, waves of popular fury, 
storms of Christian hate, whose very shrieks gave the 
lie to Christianity, in whose name the tempest-furies 
were unleashed. Like the sand of the sea, weak and 
without cohesion, we beat them back; we survive; we 
are here to-day, you whose sires escaped from Ger- 
man scorn, you or yours from Russian hate, mine from 
Spanish Inquisition. 

Like the dust of the earth, trodden upon by all, 
but uppermost at last. Those who trod us down are 
dead, buried and forgotten, while we endure, still 
producing the material growths which beautify or 
nourish the world, the spiritual growths which inspire 
it. Oh, marvelous destiny! Oh, wonderful race, what 
does it all mean? What does this anniversary mean, a 
mere milestone in the march of the eternities, what 
does it mean in the scheme of God for mankind’s weal, 
since He is the God of us all? 

“Ye are my witnesses,” saith the Lord. 

, That is the answer. 

We are witnesses for God, for the three R’s which 
nations and men alike must heed: Reverence for God, 
Righteousness toward our fellow-man, Responsibility ' 
for discharge of duty. 

Because the old nations. heeded not these ideals, 
they fell. 

So we say to an England to-day, not “ God and 


[59 ] 


my Right,” but “ God and the Right,” lest my right 
be others’ wrong; to a France, not “ Liberty, Frater- 
nity, and Equality,” but “ Liberty hallowed by God’s 
sovereignty, Fraternity sanctified by God’s Father- 
hood, Equality consecrated by God’s love.” 

And as we pause at this anniversary, we, the rem- 
nant of the oldest of nations, say to this the greatest of 
the young nations of to-day, not merely “ government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people,” but 
‘“* government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people, with government of God, by God, and for 
God,” so that God, Reverence, Righteousness, and Re- 
sponsibility shall be the ideals for life national, life 
political, life social, home life and life personal. 

We witness for these ideals. And the supreme sig- 
nificance of this celebration is that we must realize 
God’s purpose, as we conceive it, in bringing us to 
this land to help, by the lives we live as Jews and as 
American citizens, to upbuild this nation’s strength, 
her liberties, her progress, by our own loyalty to these 
ideals—God, Reverence, Righteousness, Responsibil- 


ity. 


[ 60 ] 


DRESSES DELIVERED AT FANEUIL 
HALL, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 
NOVEMBER 29, 1905 


ADDRESS BY LEE M. FRIEDMAN 


Our Jewish fellow-citizens throughout the United 
States have this year dedicated the Thanksgiving 
holiday to a national celebration to commemorate the 
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first set- 
tlement of the Jews in the United States. Not merely 
as Jews, but as American citizens, we have gathered 
here to-night to testify to the undying loyalty and 
altruistic patriotism of the Jewish citizens to the great 
American ideals of liberty and democracy. Not as 
adopted children in an alien land, but as part and 
parcel of the great American body politic, that has 
wrought and achieved its ideals out of the countless 
patriotic sacrifices of successive generations, we to- 
night celebrate this anniversary as an American 
national event. 

Ever since that day when Columbus first announced 
in a letter to his Jewish friend, Luis de Santangel, 
the discovery of America by the expedition fitted out 
by Jewish gold, manned in part by Jewish sailors, and 
guided into unknown seas by nautical tables compiled 
by a Jew, printed by another, and presented to Colum- 
bus by a third—ever since that day the Jew has 
played an honorable and not undistinguished part in 
the history and development of the Western conti- 
nents. 

Almost a hundred years before the Pilgrims landed 
at Plymouth, the Jews had established their homes in 
the Spanish provinces whence they came to the United 
States. Wherever a colony was dedicated to freedom, 
there came the Jewish settler with his indomitable en- 


[ 63 ] 


ergy, to share the hardships and perils of the pioneer. 
In Dutch New Amsterdam, in the wilds of Georgia, 
in the ancient Providence Plantations, and in Rhode 
Island, with the Quakers in Pennsylvania, wherever 
he was welcome, the Jew honorably discharged his 
duty of good citizenship. 

In war and in peace for two hundred and fifty years 
the Jew had an unbroken history in the United States 
of active participation in all the great American 
events. Truly, in the words which Washington ad- 
dressed to the Hebrew congregation when he visited 
Newport in 1790: “‘ The citizens of the United States 
of America have a right to applaud themselves for 
having given to mankind examples of an enlarged 
and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. 
All possess alike liberty of conscience and immuni- 
ties of citizenship,” and Washington continued: “ It 
is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if 
it were the indulgence of one class of people that an- 
other enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural 
rights, for, happily, the Government of the United 
States, which gives to bigotry no factions, to persecu- 
tion no assistance, requires only that they who live 
under its protection should demean themselves as good 
citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual 
support.” And let me conclude in the words of Wash- 
ington: “* May the children of the stock of Abraham 
who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the 
good will of the other inhabitants—while everyone 
shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and 
there shall be none to make him afraid.” 


[ 64 ] 


ADDRESS OF LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR 
GUILD 


In the absence of His Excellency, the governor, it 
is my fortunate privilege to welcome heartily to the 
home and the feast of the Puritan the distinguished 
Americans whom you honor to-day, to congratulate 
you on the worthy celebration of this memorable an- 
niversary, and to bring to you every good wish of the 
old Commonwealth, founded as a sanctuary where the 
Puritan might worship as he pleased, but blessedly 
developed into an asylum where all men, whatever their 
race or creed or color, may find not only equal reli- 
gious, but equal civil rights—the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts. 

Both Jew and Christian in America have a right 
to a pride in the anniversary, for it emphasizes the 
fact that, though the Jew was proscribed in every © 
European nation two hundred and fifty years ago, 
though the Hebrews of Spain, Luis de Santangel and 
Gabriel Sanchez, who played so important a part in 
fitting out the fleet of Columbus, were obliged to con- 
ceal their real religion to escape death in their own 
country, no act of exclusion marred the entrance of 
the Jews to the new land of America. The same year, 
too (1655), that witnessed the liberal policy of Hol- 
land with the Dutch grant to the Jews of leave of 
settlement in New Amsterdam, saw Oliver Cromwell’s 
Whitehall Conference nullify the edict of Edward I. 
of England with the declaration to the petition of 
Manasseh ben Israel that nothing in law forbade the 
residence of Jews in England. 


[ 65 ] 


The Puritan, indeed, owed a peculiar debt to the 
Jew. His daily life, his political notions even, were 
modeled on his own conceptions of the Decalogue and 
the Pentateuch. His children bore the names of the 
patriarchs, his mouth was full of the impassioned 
words of the prophets, his very notions of government 
were not so far from those of the Jewish Common- 
wealth. 

Throughout the long centuries, avarice and covet- 
ousness have been the basis of every Gentile taunt of 
the children of Israel. Well have you answered the 
taunt in Massachusetts. The Bay State has pro- 
duced as yet no Mendelssohn, no Heine, no Gambetta, 
no Disraeli. The Massachusetts Jew has won no 
especial distinction yet in music, in letters, or in state- 
craft. Yet he has won distinction; he has served the 
Commonwealth. Go to the hospital where the sick 
rest the easier for his tireless labor. ‘Ask the strug- 
gling musician who helped him in his day of want. 
Whom does the aged exile from the Fatherland bless 
that the evening of his shattered life is of peaceful 
sunset, not of frozen night? Seek out the bright spot 
amid the swarming tenements where the children of 
the poorest find books and music and flowers and sun- 
shine and hope and inspiration. The Jew’s fine an- 
swer to the Gentile’s taunt of avarice is that in Massa- 
chusetts his brethren who have won fortune by ability, 
have won distinction only by philanthropy and the 
charity that suffereth all and is kind. 

From no race has America a greater right to de- 
mand better citizenship than from the Benai-Israel, 


[ 66 ] 


from the Hebrew. The “ stone kraals ” of the wan- 
dering Matabele in South Africa, relics of the ancient 
colony of Sheba, the ancient cuttings of silver mines 
in Spain and of tin mines in Cornwall, remain to show 
where the energy of Solomon, King of Israel, sent the 
fleets of Hiram, King of Tyre, west through the pil- 
lars of Hercules to northern Europe a thousand years 
before Cexsar’s landing in Britain, and south, through 
a Suez Canal, to the gold mines of the Transvaal 
three thousand years before De Lesseps and Kruger, 
that gold and silver and tin and copper might be 
found for the splendor of the Temple. To whom 
have we a right to look, if not to the race to whom 
the Temple and the mercy-seat were more precious 
even than the home, for the preservation of faith and 
trust and religion and lofty inspiration in a time of 
skepticism and unbelief. 

Moses, Judas Maccabeus, Eleazar, and Bar- 
Kochba: it was Israel, independent of thought, pas- 
sionate for liberty, that raised up leaders like these to 
loose the yoke of the foreign tyrant. Can the Jew 
in America submit or stand aside in silence when in the 
great cities, the States, the nation, the American peo- 
ple rise up to break the chains of domestic tyranny of 
boss and ring? 

The Jerusalem the Roman sat down to besiege, was 
a thriving, populous city. The Jerusalem that Titus 
captured was a grave of eleven hundred thousand who 
had given life itself for faith and freedom. To whom, 
if not to their children, should we look for that self- 
sacrifice that enables poverty to spurn the gift of the 


[ 67 ] 


grafter and riches, to turn aside from the temptation 
of corruption, to the righteousness that exalteth a 
nation. 

Lafayette formed the French tricolor by adding to 
the white flag of the Bourbon kings, the red and blue 
of the shield of the city of Paris, that the French flag 
might represent not a reigning family only, but the 
whole French people. 

There is a flag of white striped with blue, the sacred 
colors of Israel, and upon it is a star, the interlacing 
triangles of the shield of David. We are here to- 
gether, my brothers, not of one race but of many, not 
of one faith but of many, but bound by a single duty, 
a single loyalty. Let us add to the flag that the 
Zionists have prepared from the ancient Jewish sym- 
bols: let us add to the white of faith and the blue 
of hope, the red of virile courage, and to the single 
star of one great race the constellation representing 
not the States only, but the combined destinies of all 
the races that blend in ours, and in our national 
Thanksgiving for the blessings vouchsafed the com- 
mon country, let us pray in the day of her triumph, as 
Holmes prayed in the day of her danger, 


“Keep us, oh, keep us, the Many in One.” 


[ 68 ] 


ADDRESS BY OSCAR S. STRAUS 


“ Few greater calamities,” says Lecky, “ can befall 
a nation than to cut herself off, as France did in her 
great Revolution, from all vital connection with her 
own past.” Here, in this historical hall, dedicated by 
‘that great commoner, James Otis, as “ The Cradle of 
Liberty,” where were held those town meetings which 
throbbed with the nascent principles of democracy, 
and where a decade later Samuel Adams and Joseph 
Warren first organized resistance to arbitrary gov- 
ernment, it is most fitting and proper to celebrate an 
historical event, which, though insignificant in itself, 
yet whose threads, dyed in the blood of martyrs for 
soul-liberty under the Inquisition in Spain and Por- 
tugal, find a fitting place in the composite fabric of 
our continent’s history and in the development of our 
civil and religious liberties. The historian of the per- 
secution of the Jews, Dr. Kayserling, says: “ Where 
the history of the Jews in Spain ends, their history 
in America begins; the Inquisition is the last chapter 
of the confessors of Judaism on the Pyrenean pe- 
ninsula and its first chapter on the continent of the 
Western hemisphere.” The expulsion of the Jews 
from Spain and Portugal and the discovery of Amer- 
ica are linked together not only as contemporaneous 
events, but also in some important contributory rela- 
tions. Emilio Castelar, in his “ History of Colum- 
bus,” says that as soon as Luis Santangel, the Comp- 
troller-General of Aragon, “one of those antique 
Jews who have so greatly helped to enlighten the 
Christian world,” heard of the dismissal of Colum- 


[ 69 ] 


bus, he prevailed upon the Queen to order his return; 
and when she complained of the emptiness of the Cas- 
tilian treasury, Santangel assured her Majesty of 
the flourishing state of the Aragonese finances, doubt- 
less, says the historian, because of the revenues derived 
from the confiscation of the property of the expelled 
Jews. From the archives of Simancas, which are still 
preserved at Seville, it is clear that Santangel, whom 
the historian has named “the Beaconsfield of his 
time,” and whose uncle of the same name, and other 
kinsmen, died at the stake in Saragossa, not only was 
instrumental, in connection with Juan Cabrera, also 
of Jewish lineage, in successfully interposing on be- 
half of Columbus, but it is proven beyond question 
that he advanced the money that made the voyage 
of discovery possible, out of his personal belongings. 
Furthermore, the first and the second letters of Co- 
lumbus narrating the facts of his great discoveries 
were addressed to Santangel and to the Treasurer 
of Aragon, also a marano, or secret Jew, Gabriel 
Sanchez. 

In order to obtain the crews to man the caravels 
of Columbus, it was necessary to throw open the doors 
of the prisons of Palos and other seaports. Within 
their dungeon walls were found many members of the 
hunted and expulsed race, and it is not surprising 
that to such men the dangers of the unknown seas 
would be an attractive escape from their pitiable 
fate. It is known that the interpreter, the surgeon, 
and the physician of the fleet, besides several sailors 
who were with Columbus on his first voyage, were 
Jews. Castelar says: “‘ It chanced that one of the 


[ 70 ] 


last vessels transporting into exile the Jews expelled 
from Spain by religious intolerance, of which the 
recently created and odious tribunal of the faith was 
the embodiment, passed by the little fleet bound in 
search of another world, whose creation should be 
new-born, a haven be afforded to the quickening prin- 
ciple of human liberty, and a temple reared to the God 
of enfranchised and redeemed conscience. . . . The 
accursed spirit of reaction was wreaking one of its 
stupendous and futile crimes in that very hour when 
the genius of liberty was searching the waves for the 
land that must needs arise to offer an unstained abode 
for the ideals of progress.” 

Among the earliest and certainly the most enlight- 
ened colonists who came to this continent, to South 
America, and to the islands in the Atlantic, were many 
Jews who left Spain and Portugal in order to escape 
the rack and the stake of the merciless bloodhounds 
of the Holy Office. The number of the children and 
grandchildren of those Jews who had been burned 
and condemned by the Inquisition, and who settled on 
the American continent shortly after the discovery, 
was so large that Queen Johanna considered it neces- 
sary, in 1511, to take measures against them. 

In 1620, when the Dutch West India Company was 
formed, Jews became influential stockholders and sub- 
sequently directors therein; and in 1654, when the 
Dutch colony of Brazil came under Portuguese con- 
trol, many thousand Jews had again to flee and seek 
a new place of refuge. In September of that year 
twenty-three of these fugitives arrived at New Am- 
sterdam. They did not receive a hearty welcome from 


[71] 


the not over-amiable Dutch governor, Peter Stuyve- 


sant, whose conception of our future metropolis was 
to make it a comfortable little Dutch village with a 
monopoly of fur trade with the Indians. When, six 
months later, the governor endeavored to expel the 
newcomers, he was reprimanded by the directors of the 
company in Holland, and instructed that the right of 
the Jews to live unmolested within the colony was un- 
reservedly granted, because to prohibit them “ would 
be unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the 
considerable loss they had sustained in the capture of 
Brazil, and because of the large amount of capital 
they had invested in the shares of the company.” 

This is the beginning of the first Jewish settlement 
within the limits of the United States, whose two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary we are commemorat- 
ing to-night. The same year, 1655, through the 
persistent efforts of Manasseh ben Israel, enlisting the 
kindly favor of the tolerant Oliver Cromwell, the Jews 
regained admission into Great Britain, from which 
country they had been expelled in 1290 under Ed- 
ward I. It should be here noted that one of the fore- 
most advocates for the re-admission of the Jews in 
Great Britain was Roger Williams, that immortal pio- 
neer of soul-liberty, the first true type of an American 
freeman, who was then in London, to obtain a new 
charter uniting the several Rhode Island towns, and 
to secure and safeguard those inestimable blessings to 
which he consecrated his life, under which “ all men 
may walk as their conscience persuades them, every 
one in the name of his God.” 

Three and a half decades before the St. Catarina 


[72 ] 


brought the little band of hunted and despoiled fugi- 
tives from Brazil to our shores, another little bark 
had plowed its way in midwinter through the stormy 
ocean, wafted by the airs of heaven to yon bleak coast. 
There she landed her little crew of refugees, men, 
women, and children, on Plymouth Rock, that step- 
ping stone to the temple of our liberties, whose cap- 
stone, bathed in the blood of their descendants, was 
placed two hundred and fifty years later by the hands 
of the immortal liberator, Abraham Lincoln. They 
were purists without priests or priestly orders, sepa- 
rated from the national church, but at one with their 
God, and drawing their inspiration directly from the 
Bible—not the catechism of Archbishop Laud, but 
from the open Bible of Moses and Luther. . They 
were in all a hundred souls, whom two hundred years’ 
struggle for freedom had prepared for this voyage. 
They studied the Old Testament in order to better 
understand the New. From the former they drew 
their civil polity; from the latter their church dis- 
cipline and ceremonials. Moses was their lawgiver, 
the Pentateuch their code, and Israel under the judges 
their ideal of popular government. The path of the 
crusaders to recover the holy sepulchre was dyed with 
the blood of the hunted professors of Judaism, and 
from a hatred organized by the church against “ the 
people of the book,” the book itself fell into dis-es- 
teem, a feeling which was carried over with many of 
the Roman rites into the early Protestant Church. 
With the rise of the Puritans, and their struggle for 
independency and freedom from ecclesiastical tyr- 
anny, came a revival of the study of the Old Testa- 


[ 73 ] 


ment, of Hebrew and of Hebraic learning. With the 
American Puritans especially, the Mosaic code and 
the Hebrew commonwealth were living realities, so in- 
tense was their interest, so earnest was their religious 
life. No architect drew his plans with more fidelity 
of purpose to reconstruct a building after an ancient 
model than did the Puritans study this biblical code 
and the Hebraic form of government, which they en- 
deavored to apply literally to their New Canaan. 
Elsewhere I have dwelt in detail upon the Hebraic 
mortar that cemented the foundations of our Ameri- 
can democracy, and how through the windows of the 
Puritan churches, the New West looked back to the 
Old East. 

It was only a few years after their first settlement 
in New York that several of the fugitives, and others 
who had arrived from across the seas, settled in New- 
port, where they were hospitably received in conso- 
nance with the spirit of the colony’s founder, Roger 
Williams. These early Puritans, austere in manner 
and with a church polity exacting and narrow, calling 
no man master, and with a deep sense of equality be- 
fore God, it was but a step to equality among one 
another, thus building up their civil state upon a 
purely religious, democratic foundation. As Lecky 
says: “It is at least an historical fact, that in the 
great majority of instances the early Protestant de- 
fenders of civil liberty derived their political princi- 
ples chiefly from the Old Testament, and the defend- 
ers of despotism from the New.” 

The American Jews, as loyal and faithful citizens, 
have shared willingly in all the trials our country has 


[74 ] 


passed through, from the days of the Revolution until 
the present time, and she has found none more ready 
than they to make every sacrifice that true patriotism 
demanded. During the Revolution there were only 
a few hundred Jews within the limits of the United 
States, yet we find in the Continental army, not to 
speak of the ranks, there were two colonels, Colonel 
Bush, of Pennsylvania, and the other Colonel Franks, 
who was the bearer of the treaty of peace to England. 
Thomas Wentworth Higginson relates that in 1788, 
in Philadelphia, in honor of the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, there marched side by side a rabbi and two 
Christian ministers—‘* really,” are his words, “ con- 
stituting the first parliament of religions in this coun- 
try.” In our Civil War more than seven thousand 
names of Jewish patriots have been identified, and 
during our lesser war with Spain, twenty-seven hun- 
dred participated, and several regiments were formed, 
but their services were not required. 

The criticism is often made that the Jews are clan- 
nish, and do not amalgamate with the rest of the 
population. This is only partially true. Clannish 
they are, not from choice but from self-respect. They 
have amalgamated as far as the delicacy of social 
relations justified, and there are not a few of the very 
best families in this, and in other cities, who have 
evidences of that amalgamation in their veins. John 
Howard Payne, who gave us that song which never 
fails to thrill a patriot’s heart, ‘“* Home, Sweet Home,” 
was the son of a Jewish mother. No people, ancient 
or modern, have brought such great sacrifices for 
spiritual ideas and ideals as the Jews; the longest 


[75 ] 


trail of martyrdom in all history is crimsoned with 
their blood. George Eliot, quoting the historian 
Zunz, says in “ Daniel Deronda”: “If there are 
ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the 
nations; if the duration of sorrows, and the patience 
with which they are borne, ennoble, the Jews are 
among the aristocracy of every land; if a literature 
is called rich in the possession of a few classic trag- 
edies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting 
for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the 
actors were also the heroes? ” 

It is sad, and a cause for regret, that we must con- 
jure up the mournful pictures oppression has en- 
graved in blood upon the pages of history, but, alas! 
every day brings to our doors the haggard and hunted 
faces of fugitives from oppression. ‘The Armenians, 
among the earliest professors of Christianity, once a 
proud and noble race, whose numbers have been deci- 
mated time and again by organized massacres, daily 
reach our shores, and give thanks to God that they are 
sheltered beneath the Stars and Stripes, far beyond 
the reach of their Russian and Ottoman oppressors. 
Only yesterday we read with throbbing hearts of the 
massacre of thousands of helpless men, women, and 
children in Odessa, Kief, Kishineff, and a hundred 
cities, towns, and hamlets throughout Russia. So 
long as these terrible outbreaks of religious fanaticism 
and class hatred disgrace our age and our civilization, 
let us not forget the everlasting meaning of the im- 
print the feet of the Pilgrims made upon our con- 
tinent, that it shall ever be a “ shelter for the poor and 
the persecuted.” To bar out these refugees from 


[ 76 ] 


political oppression or religious intolerance, who bring 
a love of liberty hallowed by sacrifices made upon 
the altar of an enlightened conscience, though their 
pockets be empty, is a grievous wrong, and in viola- 
tion of the spirit of our origin and development as a 
free people, for they, too, have God’s right to tread 
upon American soil, which the Pilgrims have sanctified 
as the home of the refugee. 


“ Ay, call it holy ground, 
The soil where first they trod, 
They have left unstained what there they found— 
Freedom to worship God.” 


[77] 


ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT ELIOT, OF HAR- 
VARD UNIVERSITY 


You have already heard that a few Jews came to 
America very early in the settlement of this country, 
and through their efforts after freedom for themselves 
and their descendants, took active part in the develop- 
ment of civil and religious liberty on the new continent ; 
but the large Jewish immigration has taken place 
within the last twenty-five years, so that its widespread 
effects are all the more striking because they are so 
recent. If ever any race came hither in search of lib- 
erty and equality before the law, and of the safety 
and prosperity which industry and virtue can win in 
a fresh land under just conditions, it is the Jews who 
have come to the United States since 1880. They 
have literally sought here freedom to worship God, 
freedom to live in peace, freedom to earn a livelihood 
by honest toil—all these liberties being denied them 
in the places whence they came. 

The Jewish race has been unique in its sufferings. 
Enslaved in Egypt, carried into captivity by Assyria, 
overrun by Rome, ghettoed and systematically robbed 
by medieval Europe, banished at one time or another 
from most European countries, at this day persecuted 
and butchered by Russia and Roumania, the long story 
of their terrible woes has come down through thou- 
sands of years to the present moment. As a race they 
have not exhibited—at least, not for many genera- 
tions past—the martial qualities; but they have shown 
the most astonishing endurance and vitality, and their 
intellectual and moral qualities have survived every 


[78 ] 


conceivable kind of physical and moral oppression. If 
the race has been unique in its sufferings, it has also 
been unique in its power of resistance and endurance. 
To what is this power due? The answer to this ques- 
tion is plain; and it is highly instructive to other races, 
and indeed to all men who aspire and hope. The 
Jewish power of endurance and survival is due to 
their religious faith. 

For the whole civilized world this race has been the 
source of all the highest conceptions of God, man, and 
nature. Through this race was developed not only 
the Hebrew religion, but also the Christian religion; 
for the Christian religion was only an outcome or de- 
velopment of the religion of the Hebrews, the early 
expounders of the new religion, afterwards called 
Christian, being exclusively Jews. I say that the 
highest conceptions of God, man, and nature are all 
Jewish. Let us examine each of these three concep- 
tions. The Jews originated, and still preserve, the 
loftiest descriptions of the attributes of God. For 
them thousands of years ago He was the one only God, 
a pure Spirit, infinite in knowledge, power, and good 
will. He was an almighty God, who worked to create 
and maintain, loved, and was to be loved. The de- 
scriptions of this one God in Hebrew literature have 
never been equaled; and they can never be surpassed. 
In many other literatures are found cosmogonies, or 
accounts of the creation of the universe; but nowhere 
can be found an account of creation so superb and so 
sound, all modern knowledge and speculation taken 
into account, as that given in the first sentence of the 
Hebrew Bible: “In the beginning God created the 


[79 ] 


heavens and the earth.” Again, the Jewish concep- 
tions of man’s nature, as set forth in the Old and New 
Testaments, sound all depths and reach all heights. 
Human lust, cruelty, and treachery, and human mis- 
ery and sorrow can never be more vividly portrayed 
than they are in the Hebrew Scriptures. Neither can 
the splendors of human courage, magnanimity, and 
justice, the steady glow of human love, and the incite- 
ments of courage and hope, be more nobly set forth. 
Concerning man, the Jewish seers asked all the funda- 
mental questions which subsequent philosophers have 
ever asked, and answered them better. ‘‘ What is 
man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man 
that Thou visitest him? ” is one of these fundamental 
questions; and how glorious the answer: “ Thou hast 
made him a little lower than the angels, and hast 
crowned him with glory and honor.” God did not 
leave the dignity of man to be expounded by nine- 
teenth-century scholars and divines; thousands of 
years ago Jewish prophets taught their doctrine in all 
its amplitude. Thirdly, the ancient Hebrew poetry 
is full of the aptest, sweetest, and most impressive 
descriptions of Nature and all her works, and of the 
influence of Nature on the spirit of man. Innumer- 
able phrases are of immortal beauty. ‘“ Let there be 
light: and there was light.” ‘ Canst thou bind the 
sweet influences of the Pleiades?” ‘ He maketh me 
to lie down in green pastures.” ‘‘ He leadeth me be- 
side the still waters.” ‘ Consider the lilies how they 
grow.” No race has ever surpassed the Jewish de- 
scriptions of either the beauties or the terrors of the 
nature which environs man. 


[ 80 ] 


Another tap-root of Jewish endurance and vitality 
is the race’s power of prayer. Prayer is the supreme 
effort of the human intelligence—the effort of finite 
man to commune with, and even to speak to, the In- 
finite. The Jews have always had, and still have, an 
extraordinary influence on their own race, and now on 
all civilized races, through their marvelous genius in 
prayer. Consider for a moment what an influence on 
the human race the few short sentences brought to- 
gether in the Lord’s Prayer have had. Those sen- 
tences have been solemnly uttered by untold millions 
of mankind, are uttered every day by millions—by 
little children and men and women at the most sacred 
moment of the day, in the sweetest mood of the day, 
in gregarious worship, in the utmost solitude of the 
soul, in the most loving communion of parents and 
children. Now every clause in the Lord’s Prayer is 
thoroughly Jewish. Every phrase is instinct with 
Jewish sentiment. It was first uttered by a Jew, and 
then remembered and transmitted by Jews. It per- 
fectly illustrates a distinctive and permanent power 
of that race. 

One other quality of the Jews has had much to do 
with their survival as a race. In their family rela- 
tions they are singularly pure, tender, and devoted. 
This may be in part a consequence of the cruel perse- 
cutions to which almost all Jewish communities have 
been, first or last, subjected. Each family was bound 
together by the pressure of external wrongs, and only 
in the family home could be found consolation and 
hope; but clearly their religion fostered filial piety. 
“Honor thy father and thy mother” is a command 


[ 81] 


on a level with “ Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me.” 

These moral and spiritual attributes of the Jews 
have brought them in comparative safety through 
formidable physical and moral evils which have 
stretched through thousands of years. At last the 
race has found a land where it can develop in peace 
and freedom. If there is any human stock on earth 
which should love and honor America, it is the Jewish 
stock. It finds here freedom not only to worship as 
they choose the God of their fathers, but opportunity 
to reap the fruits of their racial industry, frugality, 
and intelligence. In other centuries and other places 
they have been excluded from the professions and from 
many arts and trades. Here all callings are open to 
them. Their genius for commerce and trade, for 
music and the fine arts, here has free play. They 
will also have here a precious opportunity to improve 
the bodily qualities of their race, impaired by the 
oppression of ages. The race is sometimes called a 
pure race, in the sense that it is free from admixtures 
from other races; but this is by no means the case. 
Scattered as they have been through many nations, 
they have everywhere mixed with the people among 
whom they lived; and accordingly there are many 
different types of Jews now coming hither, as the 
Polish, the German, and the Roumanian. By the ad- 
mixture of these various types, the bodily and mental 
attributes of the race can be greatly improved, and 
this improvement will be one result of the welcoming 
freedom they here enjoy. A race which receives such 
benefits from our free institutions will become ardent 


[ 82 ] 


supporters of civil and religious liberty. This devo- 
tion on the part of the Jewish race to the character- 
istic institutions of America will be fostered by the 
nature of their ecclesiastical organizations. Follow- 
ing ancient custom their congregations are all inde- 
pendent, or autonomous, like those of the Christian 
denomination called Congregational; so that their 
synagogues and temples are places of training for 
self-government and the wise exercise of liberty. 

Let all the other national stocks which have met on 
the fresh territory of the Republic welcome the Jewish 
stock to a free competition in racial intelligence, 
morality, and honor; and let all the other races in 
America recognize the fact that the prodigious vital- 
ity of the Jews is due at bottom to a sublime religious 
idealism. 


[ 83 ] 


‘ADDRESS BY BISHOP LAWRENCE 


Knowing that the Governor-elect, Mr. Straus, and 
President Eliot were to precede me I have not written 
or prepared a paper, for I was sure that they would 
suggest every thought that I should present, and in 
an abler way than I could. This they have success- 
fully done. All, therefore, that is left for me to do 
is to present to you a few of the same thoughts, but 
in such an informal way as may suggest a personal 
debt, and as a bishop of the Christian Church, an 
official obligation to the Jewish people. 

1. The whole Christian Church is under daily obli- 
gation to the faith, history, and traditions of the 
Hebrews. I cannot forget that every time we offer 
our prayers and praises in our Christian churches we 
are expressing our faith in the language of the an- 
cient and chosen people. 

From the beginning to the end of the service the 
Psalter, lessons, prayers, and hymns are either in the 
very words of the Jewish lawgivers, singers, and 
prophets, or else saturated with their thought and 
character. 

Dear as we of the Christian Church hold our faith, 
we are bound and glad to confess that it is based upon 
the deep and broad foundations which were revealed 
by God through the Hebrew people. To your fathers 
in the blood and our common fathers in the faith we 
give grateful thanks. 

2. Men of faith are men of ideals. The Jews are 
essentially idealists. In this age when, with the over- 
coming of physical obstacles through the settlement 


[ 84 ] 


of new countries and the increase of wealth, the ma- 
terial side of life is so fully recognized, it is of the 
utmost importance that those who are in the midst 
of these influences, and especially those who may be- 
come leaders, should be idealists. 

May we venture to hope that the great inflow of 
Jews to this country will reinforce that idealism which 
was planted here by the Puritans who founded their 
faith, traditions, law, and govermnent so closely 
along the lines of the old Dispensation? Immersed as 
you are and ought to be in the struggle for a living 
for yourselves and your families or in the legitimate 
increase of your fortunes, it is well to recall the finer 
traditions of your race, that insight which through 
the wars, social revolutions, and political overthrows, 
always saw God’s hand, wrought for higher spiritual 
truth and brought the righteousness of heaven into 
the affairs of this earth. 

Idealists you have been through the centuries, 
idealists may you remain in this land of promise. 

3. It is one of the temptations of religious faith 
to cut itself off from character and dwell in the dreams 
of emotions. 

Mysticism is an essential feature of faith. The 
ancient Jews had it. But they were safeguarded by 
the ethical foundation of their religion. The greatest 
Jews of old were lawgivers and the interpreters of 
God’s law to the people of their day. 

How the righteousness, the justice, and the anger 
of God against a sinning people ring out from the 
past and mingle with the songs of His love and tran- 
scendent glory! 


[ 85 ] 


The need in the Christian Church to-day is for a 
deeper faith in a righteous God, for an interpreta- 
tion of religion which is ethical. To the ancient scrip- 
tures of Judaism we turn for our guidance. We 
Christians may learn from you to-day. 

I would not be true to myself or my faith if I did 
not express my conviction that we have in the Chris- 
tian faith a far deeper and broader foundation for 
character and the development of an ethical temper 
than exists in the Hebrew faith. The future of man- 
kind is wrapped up in the integrity of the Christian 
faith. 

Yet again I say that the Christian Church is 
under obligation to the ethical temper of the Jewish 
faith; that in your coming to this land there came 
this great contribution to religion, and throughout 
its history the character of this nation is to be based 
upon a faith which, deep and spiritual, is, therefore, 
ethical, and intimately concerned with the affairs, the 
business, the politics, and the social life of men. 

In connection with this will you allow me to empha- 
size what it was on my mind to say, and what Presi- 
dent Eliot has already mentioned, that the integrity 
of the family for which the Jew has always stood, is 
a tradition which is of the deepest value in this day 
and nation. 

When the marriage tie is lightly regarded, the 
home neglected, and the rearing of children shirked 
by our people, we shall look to you to sustain your 
finest traditions of family and home. 

4. Mr. Straus has reminded you that for many 
centuries you have suffered for your faith; that out 


[ 86 ] 


of the furnace of affliction your characters have been 
refined ; that you are inured to suffering and molded 
for sacrifice. 

In this land of liberty and equality you will be 

called upon for no such suffering ; the burdens of Bo 
secution you will not have to bear. 
- In what cause may your powers of endurance be 
put to the test? What burdens are you, whose shoul- 
ders have been made strong, going to carry? In 
whose service will you be glad to suffer? Surely you 
will not belie your past through the easy enjoyment 
of liberty, personal ambition, or fortune. 

You will sustain your traditions. 

This great democracy lays upon every man the bur- 
den of the Government. It demands of all its citizens 
sacrifice. Our cities and villages, our caucuses. and 
elections, our schools and State and National Govern- 
ments are calling for the richest sacrifice, not, to be 
sure, of our blood—to pour that out in heroic death 
is easy—but of our lives, our time, our thought, our 
moral courage, our independence of character, our- 
selves. 

Here is the great opportunity of the Jewish peo- 
ple: to live, to suffer, if need be, for the purity of the 
State, to carry the burdens of the people, to lift our 
political and social life to higher standards. 

Some of your brethren are already standing true 
and to the front. They are calling to all to follow. 

Thus by your public spirit you will be built into 
the national fabric. 

For in this nation and century lies an opportunity 
never before given to the Jewish people—that of 


[87] 


entering on even terms with the whole people into the 
government of a nation, its political, social, and re- 
ligious life. 

The people of all lands who come here are on trial ; 
you are on trial; the good name of humanity is here 
at stake on this one point: shall you and they join 
together, and as one people make of this nation one 
to which all men may look as in charity, purity, and 
righteousness, the Land of Promise? 


[ 88] 


‘ADDRESS BY REV. DR. C. FLEISCHER 


Tennyson speaks somewhere of 


some broad river rushing down alone 
With the self-same impulse wherewith he was thrown, 
And, in the middle of the green salt sea, 
_ Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. 


That simile has long served me as a symbol of the 
Jew. Viewed objectively, he has seemed to me to be 
like a clearly marked gulf stream in the ocean of 
humanity,—plainly a part of it, yet never lost in 
it. Here in America, that ancient social fact con- 
tinues. The Jew’s isolation, despite the mingling of 
his current with the vaster waters, is still apparent. 
Indeed, Jews and non-Jews alike are so accustomed 
to thinking of the Jew as a separate social element, 
that I am not surprised that the question is asked: 
‘What has been the special contribution of the Jew 
to America?” A rather difficult query, because his 
is largely only a seeming separateness. And then, 
too, whatever the Jew’s contribution may have been, 
it has, in the main, been made unconsciously. How- 
ever, a human group, which has in its progress 
through all the ages maintained an identity as marked 
as that of the gulf stream in the ocean, must have 
some distinct and characteristic, if not distinctive, 
traits. I have no theological or metaphysical no- 
tions about the persistent survival of the Jews 
despite experiences which would seem sufficient to 
have annihilated them. I am neither orthodox 
enough Jew to believe that God would not let 


[ 89 ] 


His “chosen people” perish, nor orthodox enough 
Christian to believe that the Jews are kept alive as 
a “horrible example,” to show the sufferings which 
must come to a people which refuses to “ accept 
Christ.” 

Simply I face the fact of the Jew’s almost un- 
canny survival, and I say, in the spirit of social 
science: ‘* Here you have another case of the sur- 
vival of fitness.” Reference has been made to the 
supposed fact that the Jew needs the opportunity for 
physical regeneration which America affords him. 
On the contrary, I am surprised at the vitality and 
the physical excellence which the Jewish immigrant 
brings hither, after a!l these centuries of unfavorable 
physical environment. That we are a volcano of 
nerves is not to be wondered at, since most Jews for 
ages were conceived and born in terror. And still 
it is not to be denied that America and freedom will 
benefit the Jew physically. But surely no one will 
claim that the Jew is degenerated morally or mentally 
or spiritually. ‘‘ What of that,” do you ask? And 
I answer: “ Everything of that!” And I insist that 
you have in the Jews a social group which has learned 
the science, and which practices the art, of living. 

Consider what has been the experience of the Jew 
at the hands of his fellow-men; consider the fires that 
have tried to melt him out of shape and the waters 
which have attempted to pull him apart; think how 
little of normal human existence he has known these 
past two thousand years—and then you will realize 
why he is bent here, twisted, crooked or warped 
there; then you will understand the superficial un- 


[ 90 ] 


pleasantnesses of the man in whom, as Isaiah says, 
“when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we 
should desire him.” But even then you will not 
know the Jew. For remember, all his ugly outward 
experiences have not been able to uglify his soul, 
they have not unmade the Jew, the man! In the 
lower strata even, among the Jews, the average of 
humanness runs high. 

In a word, the Jew is civilized. Long ago he 
learned the lessons of living and what is man’s busi- 
ness on earth. And what is that business? Merely 
to become human—to lose the beastly, to subdue the 
savage, to subordinate the animal, to become human. 
Having learned that lesson, the Jew was fitted to 
survive. One beastly, savage, animalistic “ civiliza- 
tion ” after another perished. But the Jew survived 
—hecause he was really civilized! He thought him- 
self ‘chosen ”—he had chosen himself, making 
humanness and mankind his business! Moral mono- 
theism became, at the same time, his philosophy of 
life and his interpretation of the universe. It became 
his passion, his very being, his whole existence. This 
served to sublimate him, to intensify his humanness 
and thus to increase his fitness for survival. It was 
his inward and unfailing fount of strength, his out- 
ward and impenetrable coat of mail. He could shout: 
“Though my enemies encompass me, in the name of 
the Lord I shall triumph over them!” It enabled him 
at death, whether in peaceful bed or on the in- 
quisitor’s rack, to proclaim again the victory of faith: - 
* Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One! ” 

Though the first Jewish settlers came hither two 


[91] 


hundred and fifty years ago, most of us in this 
vicinity are comparative newcomers, not more than 
twenty-five years old as Americans. ‘That matters 
little, since the Jew is an old hand anywhere at doing 
the world’s work. And he feels easily at home in 
America, consecrated as this nation is to the very 
ideals which have preserved and glorified the Jew. 

I feel moved to say that the Jew’s separateness 
will continue until total humanity is as human as 
its “ gulf stream.” Anyhow, none will deny that 
the Jew’s separateness has been worth while, and that 
he has contributed a worthy element to America and 
to the world. That fact we are celebrating here 
to-night. I believe that the Jew will continue loyal 
to his calling, the same from Abraham’s and Isaiah’s 
day to this: to be the glad slave of the ideal, to be 
intensely and broadly human, to be civilized, to be 
the servant (if need be, still the suffering servant) of 
humanity. In that hope and faith, let me bring this 
meeting to a close, in a manner befitting the occasion 
and the sacred hall in which we are, by reciting as 
a sort of benediction, in King Solomon’s original 
Hebrew, the words of Boston’s civic seal, sicuT DEUS 
NOBIS SICUT PATRIBUS: 


HO NANDY MA Iw wey pads ma oD 


“The Lord our God be with us as he was with our 
Fathers! ” 


[ 92 ] 


SELECTED ADDRESSES 


THE ADDRESS BY MR. MARSHALL WAS 
DELIVERED IN ALBANY; THE ADDRESSES 
BY DR. COHEN AND REV. DR. KRAUSKOPF 
WERE DELIVERED IN PHILADELPHIA; JUDGE 
MACK AND REV. DR. HIRSCH IN CHICAGO; 
REV. DR. KOHLER AND REV. DR. PHILIPSON 
IN CINCINNATI; REV. DR. HELLER IN NEW 
ORLEANS; GOVERNOR PARDEE, PRESIDENT 
WHEELER, AND REV. DR. VOORSANGER IN 
SAN FRANCISCO; AND THE LETTER FROM 
GOVERNOR FOLK WAS READ AT THE MEET- 
ING IN ST. LOUIS 


ADDRESS BY LOUIS MARSHALL 


The words of the Psalmist, with which we began 
our evening service, most appropriately depict the 
spirit which should prevail on this historic occasion: 


“It is good to give thanks unto the Lord, and to 
sing praises to the Most High.” 


Throughout the limits of this, our beloved country, 
our Jewish brethren are now assembled to commemo- 
rate the auspicious day on which the first Jewish set- 
tlers built their homes within these boundaries, and 
to indulge in thanksgiving to the God of Israel for 
the blessings that have resulted from that momentous 
fact. 

A survey of the civilized world, as it existed two 
hundred and fifty years ago, indicates that so far as 
the Jew was concerned—politically, materially, so- 
cially—his fortunes were at the lowest ebb. Driven 
from England in 1290, for 365 years no Jews had 
been permitted to live in the land which has become 
the mother of freedom. Driven from Spain in 1492, 
and shortly thereafter from Portugal, none of Jewish 
stock, save the Marranos, whose outward lives were 
the incarnation of falsehood, dwelt upon the Iberian 
Peninsula. In 1648, the Cossack uprising under 
Chmielnicki transformed the dream of peace and pros- 
perity of the Russian and Polish Jews into the horri- 
ble reality which has ever since overwhelmed them 
with an avalanche of misery, wretchedness, and de- 
gradation. The Jews of Germany and Austria dwelt 
within Ghetto walls, and suffered from every species 


[95 ] 


of insult, contumely, and discrimination. In France 
and Italy the Jew was a Pariah and an outcast. 

Holland was the sole oasis in the desert of human 
malevolence. ‘There the Jew and the Puritan, the 
ancient and the modern people of the Book, found a 
haven of refuge, and behind the dikes of toleration 
of that enlightened country, were afforded protec- 
tion from the wild sea of persecution which menaced 
them. 

From Holland sailed the Mayflower with its pre- 
cious cargo of humanity. Thence sailed a party of 
Jews, to found a colony in Brazil, which then owed 
allegiance to the Netherlands. For a time fortune 
smiled on the colonists. 'They prospered. They were 
happy. Their hearts were filled with gratitude to the 
God who had enabled Columbus to discover the new 
continent, not with the aid of the jewels of Isabella, 
but with that of the Jews, whose funds supplied the 
caravels which formed the discoverer’s convoy. 

But their joy was shortlived. In 1654 Portugal 
wrested from Holland the Brazilian territory, and 
these children of “‘ the tribe of the wandering foot ” 
were once more compelled to take up their pilgrimage 
to seek more favorable skies. A party of twenty- 
three set sail on the St. Catarina for New Amsterdam, 
believing that Holland, with which they had united 
their fortunes, owed to them, somewhere, a resting 
place. In their hasty departure they were compelled 
to sacrifice their possessions, and, to secure the captain 
of the vessel for their transportation, each of that 
band of refugees became sponsor for the others and 
pledged his person and his goods to attain that har- 


[ 96 ] 


bor, around which there now dwells the largest Jew- 
ish community the world has ever known. 

It is a source of inspiration, not only to their de- 
scendants, but to the entire country as well, that the 
grandchildren of the Pilgrim Fathers annually cele- 
brate their historic landing on Plymouth Rock, and 
dwell upon the virtues of their ancestors, their devo- 
tion to principle, their willingness to make every sacri- 
fice for the right to exercise their consciences, their 
struggles, and their triumphs. 

It will serve equally as an inspiration to us, and as 
a valuable lesson to our fellow-citizens of other de- 
nominations, to become better acquainted with the 
Jewish Pilgrim Fathers who, when the inhabitants of 
what is destined to become the cosmopolis, consisted 
of a mere handful, landed here, as the pioneers of 
Jewish settlement. They were poor and humble, as 
were the Fathers of the Knickerbockers. They were 
unfortunate, as were most of the dwellers in the infant 
colony. They were imbued with a deep and abound- 
ing trust in God, a virtue possessed by the greater 
part of our early American colonists. They differed 
in one respect only—they were the victims of the 
prejudice and of the intolerance of the entire 
world. 

Their greeting in New Amsterdam was inauspi- 
cious. Their goods, which had been pledged for their 
transportation, were seized. Two of their number 
were imprisoned as hostages until the funds should 
arrive with which to meet the obligations of the party. 
Peter Stuyvesant, the hard-headed and the irascible, 
moved by the bigotry of the age, gave notice that the 


[97] 


new arrivals were not only unwelcome, but would not 
be received, and that they must once more cross the 
dreary waste of waters to seek anew, if such there 
were, a place to rest their weary feet. 

Surely this was a condition more serious than the 
hyperborean blasts of winter, the defiant war cry of 
the savage Indian, the terrors and privations of the 
wilderness. But that small band was composed of 
that stuff which builds states and nations—men, self- 
respecting, dignified, permeated with the Maccabean 
spirit ; men cognizant of their rights, devoted to prin- 
ciple, seeking justice, who were willing, if need were, 
to fight for the recognition of their manhood. And 
so, when Stuyvesant threatened deportation and 
sought to slam the gates of America in the faces of 
these Jewish immigrants, they did not tamely or 
cringingly submit, they did not fawn or bend the 
suppliant knee, but they appealed to the Dutch West 
India Company, which was the controlling power over 
the colony, insisting upon their right to become in- 
habitants of New Netherland. 

As a result, on April 26th, 1655, a glorious day in 
the history of Israel, came from Holland the charter 
of our liberties, based not on sufferance, but on con- 
siderations of equity and justice, in which was pro- 
claimed this message, replete with healing to those 
aching hearts: 

‘“‘ After many consultations we have decided and 
resolved upon a certain petition made by said Portu- 
guese Jews, that they shall have permission to sail 
to and trade in New Netherlands and to live and re- 
main there, provided the poor among them shall not 


[98 ] 


become a burden to the company or to the com- 
munity, but be supported by their own nation.” 

And so they found a spot upon the globe on which 
the right to live and to remain was granted to 
them. 

_ But to live, oft-times means but to vegetate ; to crave 
and beg:; to slink with downcast eyes before a master’s 
frown; to sow in terror and to reap in dread; to see 
the bows of promise fade and die. This, too, might 
have been the fate of our pioneers, had there not been 
among them a man of heroic stature, of Titanic mold, 
worthy to occupy a commanding position in the Wal- 
halla of our early American history. High looms up 
the figure of Asser Levy, a man whose name I can 
never mention without the deepest reverence, the 
protagonist of Jewish rights and liberties in America, 
the embodiment of the Jew militant, the prototype of 
the American revolutionist, than whom there is no one 
in the history of our people more worthy to be held in 
honored memory. The records of New Amsterdam 
overflow with civic victories attained by him, more 
potent in their consequences than those won on the 
bloody fields of battle. 

Stuyvesant, smarting under the reversal of his 
policy by his superiors, became a strict constructionist 
of the grant which enabled the Jews to trade in New 
Netherland, and forbade them to trade at Fort 
Orange, your present city of Albany, or in the direc- 
tion of the Delaware. Promptly the Jews appealed 
to Holland, and promptly came a decree permitting 
trade to be carried on throughout the Dutch posses- 
sions. 


[99 ] 


The rights given to the Jews were then declared 
by Stuyvesant not to include that of holding real 
property. Once more an appeal was taken to the 
authorities, and again the Jew prevailed, and Asser 
Levy became the first Jewish owner of real property 
within the United States, and it will be interesting 
for you to know that this acquisition of property, as 
has been established by our distinguished friend, Mr. 
Rosendale, took place in 1661, in your own city, one 
year before a Jew became the owner of real prop- 
erty in the City of New York. 

At this time, life in New Amsterdam was far from 
secure. The enemies of Holland threatened from the 
sea, and the Indians from the land, and it became 
necessary for the burghers to stand guard for the 
protection of their homes. Stuyvesant would not 
permit the Jews to exercise this right of municipal 
defense, and imposed on them, in lieu of that obliga- 
tion, a special tax. The tax collector came to Asser 
Levy with his warrant. “Is this tax imposed on all 
of the residents of New Amsterdam?” was the ques- 
tion propounded. ‘“ No,” was the reply; “ it is only 
imposed upon the Jews, because they do not stand 
guard.” “I have not asked to be exempted,” said 
Asser Levy; “I am not only willing, but I demand 
the right to stand guard.” ‘* But you are not a citi- 
zen,” was the objection which met him. “ Then what 
is there to prevent my becoming a citizen? ” was his 
proud rejoinder. A new contest arose; Stuyvesant 
quailed before the resolute man, and Asser Levy be- 
came the first Jewish citizen in America, acquiring 
that priceless badge of manhood which, it was then 


[ 100 ] 


contended, had never been completely conferred even 
on those Jews who resided in Amsterdam itself. 

Levy having thus the right of a burgher, asked to 
become one of the sworn butchers of the community. 
He was refused because of his religion, but, as usual, 
he fought, and the right was accorded to him, with 
the added condition, upon which he insisted, religious 
Jew as he was, that he should not be compelled to 
slaughter swine. 

There are records extant of upward of seventy liti- 
gations in which this remarkable man was engaged. 
He was his own counsel, and, almost without excep- 
tion, he succeeded in his contentions, because they 
were right and consisted merely of a demand for 
justice. He was not a respecter of persons, He 
even sued a member of the Governor’s family for 
enticing away a servant, and withal he gained the 
respect, not only of the community in which he lived, 
of its inhabitants and its governing body, but he was 
even called into Connecticut for the purpose of ad- 
justing differences and of protecting the rights of 
his brethren in faith. His civic and tolerant spirit was 
evidenced by the fact that he loaned money to the 
Lutheran congregation to enable it to build a house 
of worship, a spirit subsequently manifested in 1711 
by the Jews of that time, who contributed a substan- 
tial amount for the erection of a steeple for Trinity 
Church in the City of New York. 

Would that there were Asser Levys in Russia in 
these trying days; that our unfortunate brethren 
there might have had such beginnings as those which 
we owe to his indomitable spirit; that the conscious- 


[ 101 ] 


ness of the rights of manhood might beat in the 
bosoms of the oppressed everywhere with the same 
force and virility that it did in the breasts of our 
Jewish pioneers! Russian history might not then be 
written with the blood of defenseless martyrs, and this 
hour of our thanksgiving would not be embittered 
with the grief, the sorrow, the depression of soul, 
which have been evoked by the unspeakable brutality 
and bestiality which have transformed the Jewish 
quarters throughout the awful Pale of Settlement in 
hapless Russia, into slaughter pens and reeking 
shambles. 

The colonial Jew availed himself of his rights. He 
freely engaged in trade and commerce, on a large 
scale, as an exporter and importer. His merchan- 
dise floated on every sea. His enterprises were exten- 
sive. He invaded the wilderness and added largely 
to the productive wealth of the country with which he 
became identified. During the Revolutionary War 
he cast his fortunes with the infant republic. He 
served in the Continental Army. In the dark days, 
when the British seized New York, the majority of 
the leading Jews, leaving their property behind 
them, removed to Philadelphia, loyal to the country 
which they felt to be their own. When the treasury 
was well-nigh empty, Haym Salomon loaned out of his 
private fortune, sums of money which in those days 
seemed enormous, a large part of which was never 
repaid to him or to his descendants. Not only did 
he furnish funds to the Government, but, without his 
munificence, such men as Madison, as they themselves 
confessed, would have been unable to have given to 


[ 102 J 


the cause of liberty the energies which they devoted 
to it. 

But why recite these instances of the loyalty of the 
American Jew to this Government? At every junc- 
ture, in every crisis, he has made the cause of this 
country his own, because he knew himself to be, and 
was, an integral part of the American people. It is 
to point out that fact, to prove that the Jew is not a 
parasite, an exploiter of the country, or a newcomer 
within its gates, that we are celebrating on this occa- 
sion. It is not to call attention to the Jew as a re- 
ligious factor, but as a civic element in the grand com- 
posite of American citizenship. He is an American 
of the Americans—a Jew by faith and religion, an 
American in all that that term can betoken. 

It is remarkable how quickly the Jewish immigrant, 
both he of the early days, as well as he of to-day, 
absorbs the ideals and the spirit of this country; how 
quickly he responds to the test of good citizenship; 
how ready he is to make every sacrifice for the country 
which recognizes him as one of its component parts; 
how grateful he is to the Almighty for having blessed 
the earth with a land whose government is based on 
the great principles of liberty, equality, and frater- 
nity, of justice and righteousness. 

If the hitherto inert mass of the Russian people 
could but be made to see that those whom it has re- 
garded as an alien race, from whom it has withheld 
every right and every privilege, whom it has op- 
pressed and repressed, out of whom it has sought to 
drive every hope and every aspiration, whom it has 
crushed beneath the iron heel of tyranny, and under 


[ 103 ] 


the infinitely heavier stigma of contempt, hatred, and 
obloquy, when transplanted to American soil, in a 
few years become dignified, industrious, patriotic, self- 
respecting, and productive citizens, they would recog- 
nize the tremendous moral and economic loss that their 
country is sustaining as a result of its cruelly insane 
policy, and repent of their stupendous and criminal 
folly. 

Our fellow-citizens, at least, fully appreciate that 
we are of them and they of us, together constituting 
a single unit—that of the American citizen; that our 
title is as ancient as theirs; that it is not conferred 
upon us as a matter of favor or of grace; that we 
have earned it by fighting for it; that our blood has 
been shed upon the battle-fields of the republic for its 
preservation, and that we cherish it as a priceless 
possession, and love the country from which we have 
derived it, because it is our own, and because it is the 
first in modern times in which the Jew secured the 
precious boon of full citizenship. 

The charter from the Dutch West India Company 
contained, as we have seen, but a single condition, that 
which provided that the poor among us should not 
become a burden to the community, but should be sup- 
ported by us. Have we fulfilled that obligation? 
Let the records of the nation be our answer. Let 
the statistics concerning the poor and the dependent 
speak for us. Let the magnificent charitable institu- 
tions maintained solely by the Jews of this country, 
and which are to be found in every State, in every 
city, be our witnesses. Let the public authorities in- 
dicate whether throughout the two hundred and fifty 


[ 104 ] 


years of our American settlement, we have ever failed 
in performing either the letter or the spirit of this 
blessed condition. The burden has oft-times been a 
grievous one; there is every reason to believe that for a 
time, at least, it will not be diminished ; but to me it is 
a source of pride and exultation that, although we are 
citizens of a common country, the religious duty of 
caring for our own brethren, of standing by their 
side in the days of their wretchedness and misery and 
poverty, of extending to them the helping hand of 
brotherhood, of enabling them to rise to the heights 
of citizenship, and of becoming useful members of 
the State, self-reliant, self-supporting, self-respect- 
ing, has been especially imposed upon us. May we 
never prove recreant to this holy obligation, to this 
tremendous trust, and may our descendants never for- 
get the debt of gratitude that they owe to the first 
Jewish settlers, nor we the gratitude that we owe to 
the God of our fathers, Who has led us out of Egypt 
into this land of freedom. 


[105 ] 


A WAY IN THE SEA AND A PATH IN 
THE MIGHTY WATERS. 


Address by Dr. Sotomon Sous ConEen 


We are met to-night as American citizens to cele- 
brate an incident in the history of our country, 
fraught with good promise for the common weal; a 
promise amply fulfilled by the event. We are also 
met as descendants of an ancient people and adherents 
of an ancient faith, to celebrate the same incident in 
its relation to our religion and our race. 

Two hundred and fifty years, the fourth of a mil- 
lennium, is a long period, if measured by the era of 
the independence of these United States—which has 
fulfilled little more than the half of that tale; but 
it is only a brief while in the history of Israel. In 
the Eternal Vision, as it regards men and nations and 
events, the time is neither brief nor long; for therein 
“a thousand years are even as a day while it passes, 
or as a watch in the night.” Centuries may come and 
go in dull monotony or in dark debasement, and a 
single moment shall flash with sudden brilliance as of 
Horeb’s bush, illuminating all time to come. 

It is not, therefore, the mere passage of the years 
that we have assembled to commemorate. Nor have 
we gathered here only that we may felicitate ourselves 
upon the growth of our nation or of our church, upon 
the strength and wealth of the republic that we have 
helped to upbuild, or upon the rights and immuni- 
ties, the material progress, the intellectual develop- 
ment, the moral expansion of the house of Israel in 


[ 106 ] 


America, during these two hundred and fifty sun- 
circlings of the earth. If antiquity were the only 
merit of our congregations and our homes, then 
though we had survived, like the fabled toad in the 
rock, through a thousand, nay, ten thousand, years of 
slothful uselessness, yet would silence be the better 
part; for in such case not pride were ours, but shame. 
Happily, we are not condemned by shame to silence. 
We may take a just pride in the work done by those 
of our race and faith for God and for man upon this 
Western continent; a work that began longer ago 
than a quarter-millennium, and that shall, God willing, 
go on while man endures upon the earth. Jews had 
probably settled in North America before the St. 
Catarina brought her precious cargo of souls from 
Brazil to New Amsterdam; and whether or not it be 
true that the first white man to set foot upon West 
Indian soil was a secret Jew, Columbus’s interpreter, 
it is now a commonplace of knowledge that Jews were 
among the crew of “the world-seeking Genoese ”; 
that his vessels were equipped by the munificence, not 
of Queen Isabella, but of some of her Jewish subjects, 
and that the theories, predictions, charts, and instru- 
ments by which was inspired and guided that momen- 
tous voyage, were, in large, if not largest, part, the 
work of Jewish astronomers and Jewish navigators. 
Thus there comes into the minds of all here assem- 
bled, the thought of those historic coincidences so 
often commented upon, and yet ever so full of new 
meanings. On the ninth day of Ab, 3174 (586 
B.c.E.), Nebuchadrezzar, the Chaldean, the most 
powerful empire builder of the East, took Jerusalem 


[ 107 ] 


and destroyed its temple. On the ninth day of Ab, 
3830 (‘70 c.z.), the second temple was destroyed by 
Titus, wielder of the Roman world-power. On the 
ninth day of Ab, 5262, Spain, soon to be chief among 
the nations of the West, thrust out from her gates 
300,000 Jews who preferred exile to apostasy. That 
trebly sad Tish’a b’Ab was, in the Julian calendar, the 
second day of August, of the year 1492 of the Chris- 
tian era. It brought to a close a watch in Israel’s 
night, that had not been without its periods of splen- 
did illumination by stars of wondrous brilliance. On 
the third day of August, 1492, Columbus set sail from 
Palos, in that same Spain, to open the gates of a 
new land wherein the “ tribes of the wandering foot 
and weary breast” were to find freedom and peace— 
and the sustained light of day. 

And yet another mournful historic parallel comes 
to mind. While the immigrants of the St. Cata- 
rina were struggling for and obtaining that recog- 
nition of their full right of manhood, their more than 
full obligation to the common weal and to their special 
community which is the most that Jews ask, the least 
that they ought to accept, in the countries of their 
dispersion—while in London, Cromwell and Manas- 
seh ben Israel were holding the historic conference 
that led to the renewal of the right of Jews to reside 
openly in Great Britain—even then from the ground 
where tigerish bigotry had spilled it in a meteless flood, 
the voice of our brothers’ blood called out to Heaven 
against the Russian Cain; and the singing and 
laughter that had filled the mouths of them delivered 
in the West, gave way to sobs and lamentation, re- 


[ 108 J 


echoing the cries of them that had been overwhelmed 
by cruel hatred in the East. So to-day, at this sea- 
son of national thanksgiving and of racial joy we 
are rudely awakened from our dream of universal 
brotherhood, and our cheers are hushed and our 
thoughts are sobered by the reflection that the day 
of persecution is not yet over; that the divine adven- 
ture of human history has not yet won to the ex- 
tinction of the beast in man. 

Does not our sorrow, however, give new force to 
the meaning of our festival? The Guardian of 
Israel slumbereth not nor sleepeth! Though the dark- 
ness of Russia seem impenetrable, it shall give way 
as the darkness “ in the beginning,” before the crea- 
tive word. V’ha-aretz hay’tah tohu va-bohu—truly 
in that land is there a seething confusion; but ruah 
Elohim m’rahefeth ’al p’ne ha-mayim, the spirit of 
God is brooding over the face of the waters. How 
beautiful the imagery of the poet of old—divine love 
brooding! Brooding to bring forth light and life, 
order and law, and the knowledge of God that shall 
forever banish darkness and evil. Brooding over the 
waters! Is there not prophecy in the phrase? Over 
the waters passed the pillar of fire leading Moses and 
the hosts of God out of Egyptian darkness. Over 
the waters went Columbus to find a refuge for all that 
were oppressed and persecuted. Over the waters came 
the St. Catarma from the bigotry of New Portu- 
gal to the freedom of New Holland. Over the waters 
will He that hath made land and sea, who prepareth 
a way in the ocean and a path amid the billows, guide 
to a place of safe-abiding his faithful ones, out of the 


[ 109 ] 


land of Magog, yea, out of Rosh, Meshech, and 
Tubal! 

History is the working of the divine within man 
toward self-realization. Its parallels are significant, 
are inevitable, are complete. Mene, Mene, Tekel 
Upharsin. The doom of Babylon is fulfilled of all op- 
pressors. From Latin, as from Chaldean, was empire 
torn; but all the countries and all the races that had 
acknowledged the sway of the conquerors, to-day build 
temples for the worship of Israel’s unchanging God. 
The glory is departed from Spain, but in the lands 
spared or delivered from her grasp, the sons of her 
exiles still study the olden Law, still teach the ever- 
lasting truths. And now our eyes shall see the judg- 
ment of God, even as our ears have heard it. The end 
hath come of the mighty tyranny that rose up to do 
evil in the barbarian North. The oppressor shall be 
humbled, but the peoples redeemed from Tsaroth} 
shall rejoice! 

We have not gathered to celebrate the passage of 
slothful years; neither have we assembled to vaunt 
the achievements of our fathers in this land. Some 
one has said that “the reward of well doing is the 
obligation to do better.” But it was Abraham Lin- 
coln who, in his immortal speech at Gettysburg, best 
phrased the thought that should be uppermost in our 
minds to-night. It is for us, the living, here to be 
dedicated to the unfinished work of the fathers of the 
republic, of the patriarchs of Israel. It is for us to 


1The Biblical-Hebrew word 74¥ (Tsar) means cruel oppressor. 
Its identity with the title of the ‘‘ Autocrat of all the Russias ” is, 
philologically, merely a coincidence. 


[110 ] 


take from the memories of the occasion, increased de- 
votion to the great cause for which so many of our 
race have given the last full measure of devotion. It 
is for us highly to resolve that our fathers’ steadfast- 
ness in life, our brothers’ faithfulness unto death, 
shall not have been in vain. Unworthy shall we prove 
of the blood of prophets and martyrs, unworthy of 
the kinship of state builders, if the future of our 
country and of our race shall not be the nobler and 
the brighter, if freedom shall not be more fully estab- 
lished and brotherhood more firmly welded throughout 
the world, because of our present-day work as Ameri- 
cans, because of our present-day lives as Jews. 

Vain is the recounting of the great deeds and great 
thoughts and great strivings of the past, if it fail to 
impress us with the deep significance of human his- 
tory as a divine adventure—an adventure whereof 
every human being is at once part and partaker. 

Behold the thought of God take shape in energy 
and in matter, in elemental atoms, in nebulas, in 
worlds. Through the deep that covers earth as with 
a garment, see, with the psalmist, the hills, the conti- 
nents arise and the waters go down into the ocean- 
valleys. Look upon the teeming life of the seas, the 
living mantle of the fields, the creeping and the flying 
things, infinitesimal cell and great leviathan, the fruit- 
ing trees, the nesting birds, the four-footed beasts, 
and—crown and consummation of all—man that goeth 
forth with the sun to his labor until the evening. 

For if the majesty of the world about us impress 
the mind with wondering awe, how deep the sense of 
reverence and mystery when the soul turns its gaze 


[111] 


upon mankind! So little is man, and yet so great! 
His habitation, but a point in the immensity of space; 
his years, an unregarded moment in eternity; his 
power, as nothing in the face of the mighty forces 
of the universe. Yet from this point in space, he has 
sent his vision forth to search infinity; in these unre- 
garded years he has grappled with the mysteries of 
existence; and though flood and earthquake and vol- 
cano have threatened to overwhelm man and all his 
works in indistinguishable destruction, his race per- 
sists and his civilization goes on. 
Well may Israel’s sweet singer exclaim: 


When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 
The moon and the stars that thou hast ordained. 
What is man that thou regardest him ? 


And yet thou hast made him but a little less than God, 
Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy 
hands! 


Contemporary civilization glories chiefly in its con- 
quest of external nature; but greatest of all human 
achievements is man’s conquest of himself. This idea, 
elaborated variously in law and in legend, in poesy 
and in prophecy, is the Hebraic contribution to world- 
progress. Jacob, wrestling with the angel, becomes 
Israel. ‘ Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he 
that taketh a city.” 

Over the works of His hands, God has indeed given 
man dominion, but he that is ** but a little less than 
God ” must achieve dominion over his own character 
and destiny. Thus does the breath of God which 
transformed the creature of dust into a living soul— 


[112] 


a soul that could become “ even as God, to distinguish 
between good and evil ”—realize itself ever more and 
more fully. To this end do men think and strive 
and suffer. To this end do nations clash and ideas 
contend. To this end is Israel’s world-wide, age-long 
martyrdom. In dim apprehension of the truth have 
men won and cherished freedom. In knowledge of the 
truth must we seek ever to enlarge the freedom of 
nations and of individuals. So that the individual 
may find free scope to develop to the utmost his God- 
like faculties, so that all and each may preserve an 
equal freedom, nations must be governed by just laws. 
Two hundred and fifty years ago men had begun in 
Europe and in America to learn this lesson from the 
Jews’ Bible. It was written large in the Declaration 
of Independence, and the history of the United States 
is the history of its modern development. In this 
development Jews have aided, and Jews must continue 
to aid. 

Two conflicting views of the duty of man in up- 
holding the truth are found in Hebrew history, in 
prophecy and in psalmody. Both have profoundly 
influenced American history to the establishment of 
justice. One inspired the Puritan; the other is the 
guide of the Quaker. Cromwell’s maxim, “ Trust in 
God and keep your powder dry,”’ echoes the Psalmist’s 
description of the saints militant, the Maccabean 
heroes with “ God’s high praises in their mouths, and a 
two-edged sword in their hands.” But Penn, true fol- 
lower of Fox, quoted rather from Micah and Isaiah 
and hoped to hasten the time when men “ shall beat 
their swords into plowshares and their spears into 


[113] 


pruning hooks.” Despite recent sad events, that time 
is measurably nearer. 

Man’s conquest of himself, the true Jewish ideal, 
necessitates peace as the foundation of moral prog- 
ress. This thought came into concrete political ex- 
pression in the commonwealth of the Friends, and 
Jews early found within its borders a congenial home. 
They were also sympathetically attracted to the set- 
tlements of the German sectarians in Pennsylvania, 
whom Whittier, indeed, calls German Quakers, and 
some of whom, going still further than the Society 
of Friends in the return to Biblical teachings, observed 
the seventh-day Sabbath and abstained from forbid- 
den food. The reciprocal influences of Pennsylvania’s 
German communities upon the Jews, and of the Jews 
upon the German Christian sects, and the work of 
both together in giving to Pennsylvania her leader- 
ship among the colonies and States, offer to the his- 
torical student a fascinating field for original re- 
search. 

There were Jews in the Valley of the Delaware, 
however, a generation before Penn arrived; probably 
before 1655, although 1657 seems the earliest date 
established by distinct records, and the names of the 
pioneers have been lost. The first name of a Jewish 
settler in Pennsylvania to be preserved is that of 
Jonas Aaron, who flourished about 1703; after that 
we find many names recorded; some among them be- 
ing those of founders of settlements that are now 
flourishing towns; and,some being still borne by hon- 
ored citizens of the commonwealth. It is unnecessary, 
however, now and here to enter into particulars con- 


p14] 


cerning the personal and public activities of the Jew- 
ish citizens of Pennsylvania. The monographs of 
Rosenbach and of Morais, the publications of the 
American Jewish Historical Society, various articles 
in the “‘ Jewish Encyclopedia,” and many recent pa- 
pers in the daily journals have treated these subjects 
as fully as the data permit. They give a goodly list 
of Jews who took part in building up the colony and 
in achieving the liberty of the State and of the United 
States; who worthily and loyally filled responsible 
judicial and administrative positions as subjects of 
the British Crown, and who aided by voice, by pen, 
by sword, and by purse, to wrest from that Crown the 
power it had abused, when, in the course of human 
events, the time for independence had arrived. 

It is not, however, upon the work of a few leaders 
in any day or generation that the welfare of the com- 
munity depends, nor can we estimate by this alone the 
value of the contribution that any section of the com- 
munity makes to the general weal. It is by the labors 
of the unnoted hundreds and thousands that mankind 
achieves its large results. Bone of the republic’s bone, 
flesh of its flesh, are we. Not only in colonial and revo- 
lutionary times, not only in periods of stress and strife, 
but at every moment of the national life, we have 
shared, we shall continue to share to the full, in all 
the high endeavors of citizenship and of civilization. 
Men and women of our race and our religion have 
contributed to our country’s art, its letters, and its 
science, its works of education and of benevolence, its 
commerce, its industry and its finance, its jurispru- 
dence and its statesmanship. They have labored to 


[115 ] 


strengthen its faith in itself and in humanity, and to 
enlarge its realization that God’s hand is over the 
nations. They have helped to keep alive its simple 
reverence for the moral law and the homely virtues. 
They have striven to make enduring the virtue, the 
liberty, and the independence of the city, the com- 
monwealth, and the Union; to preserve for future 
generations the Hebraic, the American ideals of free- 
dom, justice, and equality; to establish as the aim of 
all Americans, in all life’s relations, the Jew’s, the 
Friend’s, ideal of peace. 

But if the Jews have given much to America, 
America has also given much to the Jews. It is not 
only that to us, as to all other citizens, belong free- 
dom and opportunity, and whoso chooses may live 
in peace as a member of the ancient church, that 
the community may establish its houses of worship 
and of study by right and not by toleration. It is 
not only that the moral and political power of the 
Federal Government has more than once been brought 
to bear in behalf of our oppressed brethren in the 
East. Apart from all this, the United States has ex- 
erted a tremendous and benevolent influence upon the 
history of Jews and Judaism. Shalmaneser and 
Sennacherib, Nebuchadrezzar and Titus, scattered 
the tribes of Israel; Columbus and Penn, Williams 
and Jefferson, have reunited them. 

Dispersed in many lands, among many races; now 
honored, now degraded ; now free and prosperous, now 
enslaved and persecuted ; now leading the van of phi- 
losophy and science, now shut out from the sources of 
knowledge—their development, physical, mental, and 


[116] 


moral, has too often been thwarted or perverted. It 
has been influenced by a changing environment of 
nature, men and events, now helpfully, now harm- 
fully,—often in a manner alien to the genius of 
Judaism. 

_ America has been a meeting place for Jews repre- 
sentative of all the countries and customs of the dis- 
persion. Thus it has given opportunity for fusion 
and recasting of the Jewish character. Local preju- 
dices and un-Jewish accretions are in process of re- 
moval by attrition; essentials are becoming clearer to 
perception; and from the mingling of various ele- 
ments will emerge a type better than anyone of its 
components—perhaps more nearly resembling the 
best in ancient Israel. To this type, each section of 
the house of Israel has made some worthy contribu- 
tion. 

The Sephardic congregations have, perhaps better 
than all others, realized in Jewish communal life that 
which the artist terms “ values.” Less eager to ex- 
change old lamps for new, they have jealously pre 
served in home and in synagogue the beautiful cus- 
toms and rites of ancient worship, the lofty ideals of 
ancient culture. The German communities added 
strength and enterprise, a better ability to face the 
facts of life, and, on the intellectual side, a more 
accurate scholarship. The Russian brings a new 
stream of traditional knowledge; and the avid intel- 
lect, so long starved or forced to feed upon itself, ex- 
hibits a pathetic hunger for universal learning, an 
insatiate thirst for every betterment. Surely Israel 
in America will become stronger and wiser and more 


p17] 


faithful as the German vigor, breadth, learning, and 
practicality, the Russian idealism, enthusiasm, and 
capacity for spiritual development, are fused with the 
loyalty, steadfastness, Jewish pride, simple dignity, 
and intelligent regard for olden things, that have 
characterized the Sephardim. 

Time will be needed for the complete accomplish- 
ment of this fusion, but its beginnings are visible. 
Meanwhile the Russian element in American Jewry 
is already the most numerous; soon it must become 
dominant. Does the new generation, do the sons and 
grandsons of the immigrants of twenty-five years 
past, realize the tremendous responsibility that this 
involves? Jewish ideals and traditions, the citizen- 
ship loyally and honorably fulfilled, the faith pre- 
served amid trials and vicissitudes, the learning ever 
cherished, are theirs to maintain and to advance. 
May not the representatives of the elder days turn to 
the heirs of the future and say: All this we give into 
your keeping—see that ye keep it well! 

But after all, the Jews of America will ever be 
only a fraction, a small fragment, of the Jews of the 
world. To-day, the great mass are living under op- 
pressive and anxious conditions in Russia. The dawn 
of their country’s freedom, so long hoped for, so 
loyally wrought for, has brought them but bitter dis- 
appointment and new misery; and who can say what 
the future of monarchy or of republic in that dis- 
tressed land, my hold of good or evil? Present and 
future are alike filled with dread. For all the suffer- 
ing tribes and nations and classes of Russia we may 
wish peace and liberty; but to the Jews of Russia we 


[118] 


—— 


owe a special duty. For these, our brethren, there 
must be found a place to live, an opportunity to de- 
velop their manhood. Surely upon this fertile earth, 
there is somewhere an undeveloped land that waits 
their coming; a land which they may subdue to agri- 
culture and herding and commerce and civilization— 
and the divine right of man! 

There, albeit through toil and suffering, let a new 
state arise, upbuilded by Jews; as by the pioneers 
of centuries agone, Puritan, Cavalier, Quaker, Men- 
nonite, Jew, were upbuilded the American colonies, the 
United States. There shall they who go forth from 
oppression to-day, found settlements upon the syna- 
gogue and the Bible, even as New England and Penn- 
sylvania were founded upon the Bible and the meet- 
inghouse. There active brain and sturdy arm shall 
wrestle with and conquer nature, while patient, stead- 
fast heart pursues its conquest over self. Nor shall 
there be a forgetting of Zion, but rather a loyal prepa- 
ration for her days of renewed youth—days yet in 
the hidden future. 

The world is older than when Columbus sailed from 
Palos; than when the St. Catarina entered Man- 
hattan harbor; than when Penn sent forth his colony 
of Friends. Conditions have changed; the migration 
of thousands, the upbuilding of a new state in a new 
land, will need greater encouragement, more substan- 
tial assistance. Let us who have been blessed with 
birth in the United States or with admittance to its 
freedom and its opportunities, not fail our brothers 
in assistance or in good will. From our gathering to- 
night and from the gatherings that are to follow, let 


[119 ] 


a message of courage and of faith go forth to them 
that grieve in Meschech and lament in Kedar. Let 
it tell them that our aid shall not be the mere dole of 
money for passing needs; but that it shall be a per- 
sistent force seeking a permanent good. Let it tell 
them that our hands are indeed open to relieve their 
great distress, but that we shall not be content to salve 
our consciences with almsgiving ; that we are earnestly 
uniting to work for them and with them unto the 
achievement of liberty and human rights, and that we 
shall not cease from our endeavors until a way shall 
be opened for their deliverance over the waters, into 
a new land of freedom and of hope. 


[ 120 ] 


THE JEWISH PILGRIM FATHERS 


Address by Rev. Dr. JosEpH KRavskopr 


Is it accident or is it decree of Providence that the 
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing 
_ of Jews in the harbor of New York should be darkened 
by the sorrows that have fallen upon the house of 
Israel? Much as so auspicious an event in the story 
of the wandering Jew deserves fitting commemoration, 
it is impossible for him to rejoice this side of the 
Atlantic, when, on the yonder side, in the terror- 
ridden land of the Czar, hundreds of families have 
been widowed and orphaned, thousands of homes pil- 
laged and outraged, and hundreds of thousands 
placed in constant terror lest the very next hour wit- 
ness a reénactment of the massacres of Odessa and 
Kishineff. And, besides, it is difficult to rejoice in the 
freedom that is ours, when in yonder land of bondage, 
half of the Jews of the world are still in slavery, still 
denied not only citizenship rights in return for dis- 
charging their citizenship duties, but even their 
human rights. In days as rich in memories of bless- 
ings as these, there seems to be a special charge ad- 
dressed to us in the question that Lowell asks: 

If there breathe on earth a slave 
Are ye truly free and brave? 

If you do not feel the chain 
When it works a brother’s pain 
Are ye not base slaves indeed 
Slaves unworthy to be freed ? 


The more we dwell upon the theme that has 
brought us together to-day, the less do we see of acci- 


[ 121 J 


dent in the synchronous happening of the Russian 
atrocities and the two hundred and fiftieth anniver- 
sary of the first settlement of Jews in the United 
States, the more clearly seems to stand out the design 
of God. He, who has guided the destiny of Israel 
along paths that have often baffled our understanding, 
but that have proven in the end that His thoughts 
are higher than our thoughts, and His ways better 
than ours, may have chosen the present time for the 
imparting of lessons which the world has long had 
need to learn, and for the ripening of purposes for 
which the hour has come. Perhaps it is to draw Rus- 
sia’s attention to the proud achievement of the Ameri- 
can Jew. Perhaps it is to open her eyes to the bless- 
ings of which she has deprived herself by cursing the 
most valuable of her citizens. Perhaps it is to speed 
her granting her Jewish subjects the rights and liber- 
ties that America has granted to the Jew, and thereby 
enable him to become the valuable factor in the in- 
tellectual and moral and industrial life of Russia 
that he has become in the United States. Perhaps it 
is to send a ray of light to illumine the gloom that 
now compasses our brethren in the land of their afflic- 
tion, a breath of hope to those who now languish and 
faint in the slough of despond. Perhaps, by drawing 
the attention of the world to the contrast between Rus- 
sia and the United States, and between the difference 
of treatment accorded to the Jew in these respective 
countries, its design is to emphasize anew the prophecy 
of old: “cursed are they that curse the Jew, and 
blessed they that bless him.” 

Blessed has been the lot of the Jew in the United 


[ 122 ] 


States, and blessed have been the United States in 
blessing him. It is a marvelous story, that of the set- 
tling of the Jew on the Western continent, and the 
more we read and study it, the stronger grows the be- 
lief that it was the hand of Providence that opened 
for Columbus and for the Jews accompanying him 
the portals of the new world, to afford a resting place 
at last to the “ tribe of the wandering foot and weary 
breast,”” and a haven to all others seeking shelter and 
peace. 

Like a chapter of romance reads the answer to the 
question that Longfellow asks in the Jewish cemetery 
at Newport, 


How came they here? What burst of Christian hate 
What persecution merciless and blind 

Drove o’er the sea—that desert desolate— 

These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind ? 


It is at the hour of dawn, on the morn of August 
3, 1492, that three small caravels sail forth from the 
Spanish seaport town of Palos. Darkness hovers over 
the deep, even as it hovers over the minds and souls 
of the temporal and spiritual rulers of the land of 
Spain. Back toward the land, which they never ex- 
pect to see again, look with tearful countenance nearly 
all of the fourscore and ten sailors who have ventured 
forth upon the perilous journey. With eyes westward 
turned, and at a distance from the others, stands a 
small group of men. The tall, majestic form of the 
foremost of them is the admiral of the little fleet. 
His inspired countenance reveals neither tear nor fear. 
He who had conquered the opposition of sovereigns 


[ 123 ] 


and had confounded the sophistry of scholars, who 
eighteen years long had patiently endured taunt and 
rebuff, desertion of friends, and treachery of sup- 
porters, is now in the very ecstasy of joy. And in the 
fullness of hope is that little band of Jews, near him. 
One of them is the overseer of the crew; another is the 
interpreter; another is the physician. One of them 
is the first to descry the almost despaired of Western 
shore. Another is the first to set foot upon it. 

And the Jews at home, whose patronage and learn- 
ing had made possible that most daring voyage, were 
the first to receive the account of the epochal dis- 
covery that had been made. Neither Ferdinand and 
Isabella, nor the grandees of state or church in all 
the land of Spain had as much at stake in the suc- 
cess of that journey as had the Jews. Toward its 
accomplishment they had liberally given of their 
learning and had amply spent of their means. They 
had helped to prove the rotundity of the earth and 
had drawn the charts of the sea. They had made de- 
pendable the astrolabe and the compass. They had 
equipped two of the three caravels. 

Whither were they to turn if this last and only 
hope were to fail? On the last day of April the edict 
had been issued expelling three hundred thousand 
Jews from their homes and native land. Thrust out 
of Spain by the most powerful and most catholic 
sovereigns of Europe, what Christian country would 
care to receive them, what Christian potentate would 
dare to tolerate them? The terms of grace expired 
on the second day of August—one of the saddest days 
the sun ever shone upon. At the dawn of the follow- 


[ 124] 


ing morn, the little fleet sailed forth, destined to find 
for the homeless wanderer a haven of rest more 
blessed than any he had enjoyed since the days he had 
sat under his own vine and fig tree in the land of 
Palestine. 

Doubt it, ye of little faith! As for me, I see as 
clearly the hand of compelling fate in Isabella’s sign- 
ing the order for Columbus’s voyage of discovery on 
the very day she signed the expulsion edict of the Jew, 
as I see the hand of Providence manifest in the afflic- 
tions that, in our days, have come upon the house of 
the Romanoffs and upon the Russians for the afflic- 
tions they have brought upon the house of Israel. 

The new world was taken possession of in the name 
of the sovereigns of Spain. With the exception of 
Jewish refugees and maranos, who came in search of 
home and liberty, the first settlers were largely ad- 
venturers, who came in search of gold. With them 
came men of the church, equally lusting for gold and 
equally thirsting for blood, the two chief curses of 
the church of the middle ages. Soon the inquisition 
with all its horrors made its appearance in South 
America, where the first settlements had taken place, 
and it was not long before even in the new world the 
Jew had to taste of Spanish and Portuguese cruelty, 
for the sin of having inaugurated and developed many 
of the most important industries of the colonies, and 
for having reaped the just reward of his intelligent 
and thrifty toil. A century long these persecutions 
endured with greater or lesser severity, until it almost 
seemed as if the curse of the old world would ulti- 
mately whelm the Jews in the new. 


[125 ] 


But Providence had already passed sentence upon 
Spanish rule in the new world. Naught was to be the 
harvest of all the: bloodshed and cruelty with which 
she had sown and polluted the Western Hemisphere. 
Every blessing was to turn into blight, every strength 
into weakness, every gain into loss. She, the proudest 
mistress of Europe, was to become the humblest of all; 
she, the mistress of a whole continent, was not to retain 
an inch of all its soil. 

And in the northern part of this same new world 
there was about to loom into sight a new era in the 
history of man, the brightest the world had yet wit- 
nessed ; there was about to dawn a new conception of 
right and liberty, the best the world had yet enjoyed. 

In 1614 the Dutch landed at New York, or New 
Amsterdam, as it was then called. In 1620 the Pil- 
grim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock. Hither 
came the latter, braving in a frail vessel the dangers 
of a wild and untried ocean, for the privilege of 
worshiping God in accordance with the dictates of 
their own conscience. And hither came the former 
from the Netherlands, pledged to liberty of conscience, 
remembering the sufferings they and their fathers had 
endured under Spanish subjugation. The Jews knew 
of the hospitable treatment which had been accorded 
their brethren in Holland, after it had thrown off the 
Spanish yoke, and so, leaving the inhospitable lands 
of the southern continent, they sailed northward, and 
arrived in the year 1655 in New Amsterdam. 

Oh, that we might hold forever sacred, alongside 
the Mayflower, the name of the little ship St. Catarina 
that landed the first Jewish colony in the harbor of 


[126 J 


New York! Oh, that we might hold forever sacred, 
alongside the dates 1620 and 1614, the date 1655, 
the year in which one of the proudest and happiest 
chapters in the long and tragic history of Israel was 
opened! Oh, that we Jews might assemble annually, 
as do the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers and of 
the Knickerbockers, to do honor to our brave sires, 
who, in the year 1655, only thirty years after the 
landing of the one, and forty-one years after the 
settling of the other, helped to lay the foundation of 
the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Elimi- 
nate these three dates and there are few other dates in 
our history worth remembering. Without these dates, 
that proudest date of ours, 1776, would never have 
been written large on the pages of our history. 
Within the cabins of the Mayflower and the St. 
Catarina were those principles conceived that gave 
birth to the battle cry of 1776. From the Pilgrim 
Fathers fleeing their English persecutors, from the 
Dutch, fresh from having overthrown the tyranny of 
bigoted Spain, from the Jew fleeing the cruelty of 
the South American Spaniard and Portuguese, have 
sprung these free and independent, these liberty- 
loving and liberty-bestowing United States. Their 
yearning for religious and political liberty dictated 
our Declaration of Independence, drafted our Con- 
stitution, severed the church from the state, cast into 
our liberty bell the words of our Bible: ‘ Proclaim 
liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants 
thereof.” 

Significant as is the part the Jew has had in the 
founding of the nation, yet more significant is the aid 


[127] 


he rendered in its development. The handful of Jews 
of the year 1655 has grown to over one million in 
1905, and of all the immigrants of this nation of 
immigrants, none—to cite the words of our late sec- 
retary of state, the lamented John Hay—none has 
proven himself more worthy of American citizenship 
than he. Scarcely had he settled at New Amsterdam, 
when he voluntarily asked to be permitted to render 
military service alongside the other burghers. From 
the first he recognized that the sharing of communal 
privileges involved the necessity of sharing communal 
duties. Well may our heart swell with pride as we 
follow the record of the Jew in the War of Independ- 
ence. Look over the roll of honor containing the 
names of those who signed the Non-Importation 
Agreement, and count the score of Jewish names. 
Read the names of those who shed their heart’s blood 
on the battlefields fighting for their country’s liberty, 
and you read the names of scores of Jews. Read the 
names of those who poured forth their treasures and 
their all to enable the colonies to carry on their war 
for independence, and among the most generous and 
most self-sacrificing, stand the names of scores of 
Jewish patriots. Read the name of the lieutenant of 
Benedict Arnold, and note that while the general is 
found guilty of foul treason, the lieutenant is in- 
trusted with special dispatches to Franklin at the 
court of France—and that lieutenant is a Jew. Read 
the names of the patriots who made possible the rear- 
ing of the proud monument of Bunker Hill, and you 
find one of the two givers of princely sums a Jew. 
And reading the story of the Jew’s patriotism in 


[128 ] 


the War of Independence, you read at the same time 
his story in the War of 1812, and in the Mexican 
and Civil and Cuban Wars, in everyone of which he 
performed deeds of valor and patriotism that estab- 
lished, beyond cavil and question, that of all citizens, 
none can better love and better cherish than the Jew 
these United States, the first country, since the days 
of Palestine, that he was permitted to call his own. 

But successful wars against tyranny and slavery 
are not the only sources of a people’s greatness. 
Many a nation has found its grave in its excess of vic- 
tories; many a hero his fall in not knowing the vic- 
tories of peace. It is in the use that a country makes 
of its periods of peace, it is in its fitness to develop 
its resources when the battle flag is furled, wherein 
lies the secret of its life and vigor, the elixir of its 
healthy growth. 

And in this the United States has no peer in the 
family of nations. And toward that preéminence no 
people has contributed more than the Jew. Whether 
studied in the industries or in commerce, in the arts 
or sciences, in public office or in private life, the Jew 
has written a marvelous story of achievement, has 
reared a monument to his intellect and enterprise and 
integrity upon which other nations, more especially 
Russia, may well look, and on which they may well 
reflect. 

And of this monument the United States itself is 
as proud as it is of the loftiest granite shaft that 
kisses the blue empyrean, as proud as was Washing- 
ton, when, in answer to the address of welcome, pre- 
sented by the Jews of Newport, he said: ‘“ The citi- 


[129] 


zens of the United States of America have a right to 
applaud themselves for having given to mankind ex- 
amples of an enlarged and liberal policy, a policy 
worthy of imitation.” 

And Washington’s hope will yet be realized. 
Profiting by the blessed experience of the United 
States and listening to its stirring entreaties, other 
nations will yet be moved to adopt the liberal policy 
it adopted from the first, and from which it has not 
departed to this day. 

And once other nations shall treat the Jew as he is 
treated here, once other nations shall relieve the 
‘American Jew of the terrible burden he has been 
forced to bear in caring and providing for the hun- 
dreds of thousands of brethren fleeing to these shores, 
once the Jews of other countries shall be permitted to 
live in peace and in the enjoyment of their inalienable 
rights,—the genius of the American Jew will burst 
forth in a splendor that will surpass all that it has 
hitherto achieved. All his intellect and skill of four 
thousand years of cultivation in the hard school of 
trial and tribulation, all his hopes and all his ambi- 
tions, he will lay at the feet of the United States as 
a thanks-offering for its having respected his man- 
hood when all other nations spurned him, for its hav- 
ing honored his citizenship rights when all other 
nations cast him out, for its having afforded him the 
opportunity to show that, in loyalty to his flag, in 
patriotism to his country, in devotion to his fellow- 
citizens, the Jew is inferior to none, is the peer of all. 


[ 130 ] 


ROOM FOR ALL 
Address by Rev. Dr. K. Kouier 


The weekly portion of this Sabbath afternoon tells 
a story of patriarchal times which contains both the 
history of the world and the history of the Jew, as it 
were, in a nutshell: Isaac had grown rich in herds and 
flocks, and the Philistines envied him and stopped all 
the wells the servants of his father had digged, and 
Abimalek said to Isaac: “ Go from us, for thou art 
too mighty for us.” Isaac departed, and behold, 
when his servants digged a new well, the herdsmen 
strove with them saying “this water is ours,” and 
they called the well the “ Water of Strife.” And they 
digged another well, and the men contended for that 
also, and they called it the “‘ Water of Contention.” 
And he moved still farther away, and they strove no 
longer, and they called the well “‘ Rehoboth ” (Room), 
for they said: “ The Lord has made room for us, 
and we shall prosper in the land.” 

Is this not the history of man through the cen- 
turies? A continuous record of strife and conten- 
tion! The earth seems too small for the nations and 
empires as they wage war against one another, to en- 
rich themselves each at the expense of the others, and 
drive away the owners of the land they have so long 
inhabited. Nor do the religious sects act any better 
toward one another. As soon as they attain power 
they claim the monopoly of truth and salvation for 
themselves, while denying the very right of existence 
to others ; “ Ours is the spring of living waters,” they 
say. And so there is but oppression here and perse- 


[131] 


cution there, but nowhere toleration and peace. This 
was the aspect of the world when a new hemisphere 
was discovered, and a new principle entered the life 
of man. No longer should the oppressor’s rod hold 
nations and classes in subjection, nor religious fanat- 
icism shackle the mind and turn the earth into hell, 
because men dared seek heaven along other roads than 
the church had laid out. ‘* Rehoboth ” was the tidings 
of the New World. Room, opportunity, and liberty 
for each struggling race and class and sect! Room 
and scope for all honest toil, opinion, and aspiration! 
Freedom of conscience, freedom of worship! Room 
and freedom for the oppressed and persecuted of all 
lands and tongues! This was the watchword which 
created a new type of manhood and womanhood, a 
people self-reliant and self-respecting, at once rising 
to larger views of life and quick in advancing with 
rapid strides to the fore of humanity in enterprise and 
skill, in education and knowledge. Yes, America has 
become the land of broad humanity, the hope of the 
downtrodden, the shelter of the persecuted, and its 
broadening, liberating, and humanizing influence is 


felt throughout the world. Yet who has greater cause ~ 


for thanksgiving to-day than the Jew, the Pariah of 
the nations, the Cinderella among the religions, the 
scapegoat of the raving mobs, the target of hatred 
and contumely of the lands and ages, the man of sor- 
row singled out like the sheep for slaughter? Here 
at last he has found room and opportunity, his Reho- 
both, rest and ease. Here his bent-down figure, 
weighed down with the burden of shame and wretched- 
ness, a picture of misery of the Ghetto, may again rise 


[ 132 ] 


to the full stature of manhood, and in proud self-con- 
sciousness vie with his fellow-citizens in noble achieve- 
ments in all the branches of industry and commerce, 
in patriotic and philanthropic zeal, in social and polit- 
ical success, to be recognized as the peer and equal of 
all. More than that, under the inspiration of liberty 
he has grown as broad-minded and large-hearted as 
the Jew in the brightest days of Spain ever was. In- 
deed, noblesse oblige has become his maxim. He 
has become like Joseph the prince among his brethren, 
the chosen instrument in the hands of Providence to 
bring aid and salvation to a multitude of people. To 
him the Jews of the world look for success and encour- 
agement. His loyalty and liberty have rendered him 
the leader and helper of his brethren abroad. 

While our hearts are heavy with grief over the 
tragic fate of our brethren in the land of Russian 
tyranny, and our festive joy has been turned into 
mourning by the massacres perpetrated by a brutal- 
ized mob, a thousand times more cruel than the canni- 
bals of South Africa, we may yet find some consola- 
tion in the proud satisfaction that the American Jews 
have proved equal to the great emergency and in less 
than two weeks collected the sum of a million dollars 
for the relief of their unfortunate brethren. 

Still this is but a token of what the American Jew 
is destined to accomplish in the future, of what Amer- 
ican Judaism is bound to become for the world at 
large, if we but rise to the full recognition of our great 
mission. Let us not forget that as long as there is 
strife and contention in the world, the Jew will have 
to undergo martyrdom for the cause of truth, for the 


[ 133 ] 


cause of righteousness and humanity. At present we 
have been privileged to offer material relief to our 
suffering co-religionists. But greater sacrifices are de- 
manded from us, because our opportunities are be- 
coming greater. Greater will be our obligations be- 
cause our responsibilities will grow, as we advance in 
power, in numerical and in intellectual strength. We 
shall most assuredly do our utmost in releasing our 
brethren from the misery and scourge under which they 
are bleeding and dying to-day, and endeavor to help as 
many as possible to find places that offer safety and 
peace to their endangered lives and homes. But all 
this will not check the tide of evil altogether, nor re- 
move the scourge of all the hatred and prejudice 
under which the Jew has been suffering all through 
the centuries. As long as malicious, slanderous pres- 
entations of the Jewish people, as if they were a set of 
murderers, hungry after innocent blood, remain un- 
challenged, and their poison is instilled by the Church 
into the stupid, unthinking masses, to fan their blood- 
thirsty fanaticism against the Jew, so long will con- 
tention and strife lead to persecution and expulsion, 
to Jew-baiting, and the inhumanity committed 
throughout the centuries in the name of religion. 
We need a system of self-defense extending all over 
the globe, yet not by resorting to firearms and parry- 
ing swords with swords, but with the weapons of 
truth against those of falsehood. Our cause is bound 
to triumph in the end, for ours is the faith in human- 
ity and humanity’s God. Over against all the intol- 
erance and hostility fostered by other creeds, our re- 
ligious teaching is “Rehoboth ”—salvation and 


[ 134 ] 


truth for all. Instead of suffering mission societies 
to work for the Christianization of the Jew, let us 
form leagues for the purpose of humanizing Christen- 
dom. And we need but appeal to the intelligence of 
the enlightened ones, whose number is growing con- 
tinuously, and we shall have the support and recog- 
nition of the best. Here in the land of Roger Wil- 
liams and Jefferson, the land whose foundation is 
righteousness and justice, among a people whose re- 
ligion is above all broad and humane, Judaism is given 
the opportunity to work out its great mission, and, 
with the full consciousness of its prophetic calling, to 
build up a system of thought and life large enough 
and profound enough to blend all that is good and 
true and beautiful in our own culture with the sub- 
limities of our ancient faith, so as to render it a well 
of Rehoboth—an all-encompassing world-conquering 
truth for all the nations, to join us, the martyr-priests 
and heralds of God, the Father of all. 

So may, out of the great ordeal through which our 
Eastern brethren are passing, a new Judaism emerge, 
full of hope and promise, both for the Jew and for 
humanity at large. And who knows but that the finger 
of Providence is again, as in the day when the Jews 
left Spain, pointing to America as the Rehoboth, the 
land which has room and opportunity and prosperity 
for all, yet not in a material state only, but for the 
realization of the highest ideals of humanity, the 
building up of an empire of righteousness and love 
and peace in which Israel, the prophet people of yore, 
will have its full share as the seed of those blessed by 
God, rooted in a land replete with blessing for all 
mankind. [135 J 


THE JEW AS A LIBERAL FORCE 
From an address by Rev. Dr. D. Purtirson 


This is a unique occasion. That Jewish congrega- 
tions should hold special services in commemoration 
of the landing of the first Jews upon the blessed shores 
of our beloved country is but natural and in the order 
of things, but that a non-Jewish church organization 
should devote one of its regular services to celebrating 
this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, which looms 
large at this time upon the American Jewish horizon, 
is so unusual an occurrence even in these better days 
of religious breadth of view in which we are living, 
that it is of more than passing interest and will surely 
be pointed to by some future historian as an evidence 
of that fine spirit of human fellowship that rises above 
the narrow distinctions of creed and sect. As far as 
I know, or have heard, this is the only service of this 
kind in connection with our anniversary ;* without 
doubt there are other churches in this land whose 
pastors and worshipers stand on a platform broad 
enough to make a service of this kind possible, but it 

* The editors of this volume take pleasure in recording the fact that 
this service was not the only one of its kind. In Ithaca, N. Y., jor 
example, the services in the Unitarian Church on Sunday, Novem- 
ber 26, 1905, were of a commemoratory character, the lecture being 
devoted to an account of the Jew in America and the “ order of serv- 
tice” issued by our Executive Commitiee being utilized in part. In 
several instances besides this, the ministers of various Christian churches 
chose as the subject of their discourses on the Sunday before or after 
Thanksgiving Day, the relations of the Jew to his Christian fellow- 
men; one of these discourses, delivered by Rev. Dr. Minot J. Savage 


on “The Jew in Christendom” was thereajter issued in pamphlet 
form. 


[ 136 ] 


will remain to the unique merit of this congregation 
with its wide outlook, and of its minister whose cos- 
mopolitan humanity and humane cosmopolitanism are 
so well known in this community that they, of all the 
non-Jewish organizations in the country, had the 
happy inspiration of furnishing this tangible proof 
of the breadth of fellowship they profess. I welcome 
this gathering as an auspicious augury of the possi- 
bilities of the American spirit and consider it a privi- 
lege to participate in this service and to speak from 
this platform on the significance of the event now 
being commemorated in the light of Jewish achieve- 
ment in the United States. 


What this home of freedom has signified and signi- 
fies for the Jew is patent; here he has found a haven 
of refuge; here he has had the opportunity to de- 
velop his God-given powers without let or hindrance; 
here he has been permitted to worship his God as his 
conscience dictates, without fear of the persecutor’s 
wrath or the oppressor’s cruelty; here he has learned 
to be once again a man among men, after he had been 
condemned to be a Pariah and an outcast for cen- 
turies in European lands; here, for the first time since 
the Roman arms conquered his ancient Palestinian 
domicile, did he find a land which he could call home; 
yes, home, for this two hundred and fiftieth anniver- 
sary brings out in bold relief the fact that the Jew 
came hither less than fifty years after the English 
landed at Jamestown, and only thirty-five years after 
the Mayflower bearing the Pilgrim Fathers glided 
into Plymouth harbor; here the Jew has been en- 


[137] 


abled to demonstrate that he is at one with his 
neighbors in all things which make for the realization 
of American ideals; he has fought in every struggle, 
bled on every battle field, responded to every call of 
patriotism in peace and in war, has been intensely 
loyal in speech and in act—in a word he is an Ameri- 
can of the Americans, a lover of his city, State, and 
country with every fiber of his being; he has shown 
the world that, nationally, he is devoted with all his 
heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength to 
the country of his birth or adoption, and that only 
in his religious belief is he different from his fellow- 
citizens of other faiths. 

All these things this latter-day promised land in 
which we are living has made possible for the Jew, 
but, on the other hand, one may claim, I believe, with- 
out laying himself open to the charge of chauvinism, 
that the Jew has repaid all this largess by a peculiar 
service to the high cause of liberty and liberality of 
thought that this country symbolizes. Very few, even 
of the limited number who study the story of Jewish 
endurance throughout the medieval ages of oppres- 
sion, appreciate the service of the children of Israel 
to the truth in its largest conception. They were 
a small minority dwelling in the midst of powerful 
majorities; they had inherited a certain truth which 
they held sacred; for that truth they were content to 
live and to die, to suffer and to endure; by this course 
they bore testimony to the power of the spirit which 
can rise superior to all earthly woe and misery; as to 
all minorities who are willing to forego every worldly 
advantage in their devotion to the truth they hold 


[ 138 ] 


dear, so to the Jews confined in the Ghettos of Europe 
do all truth-lovers and truth-seekers owe an incal- 
culable debt of gratitude; and in the final accounting 
this aspect of the significance of Jewish persistence 
and constancy in the face of nameless woes and count- 
less ills will receive its due and its place. 

Continuing this line of thought permit me to call 
attention to a somewhat similar service which the Jews 
in the United States have performed. This lies not 
so much on the surface, so that he who runs may read; 
still a little consideration will demonstrate clearly that 
the Jew has been one of the chief forces making for 
the preservation of the high aims and truths of the 
spirit of liberalism in this land. When this Govern- 
ment was founded, one of the leading purposes of 
the fathers of the republic was the separation of 
church and state. All religions were to have an equal 
standing within the body politic. No religious sect 
was to be recognized in the councils of the Govern- 
ment. The people of this country are possibly in 
the enjoyment of no greater boon than this, owing 
to the wise foresight and broad statesmanship of the 
men who stood sponsors at the birth of this Govern- 
ment. Those men were students of history, and the 
history of nations had shown them that the union of 
church and state had been the fruitful cause of more 
persecution, more bloodshed, more wars, more misery 
during the so-called Christian centuries, than any ~ 
other single thing; therefore, they determined to keep 
the two absolutely separate in the new experiment 
of government which they were inaugurating. Dur- 
ing the century and a quarter of the existence of this 


[139 J 


Government, attempts have been made time and again, 
and are still being constantly made by narrow-minded 
religious sectarians, to undo this blessed work; Con- 
gress has been stormed with petitions to amend the 
Constitution so as to have this land declared a Chris- 
tian country; State legislatures have been, and are 
being, constantly importuned for similar purposes; 
Protestant sects have worked with might and main to 
Protestantize the public schools; all these efforts are 
portentous of grave dangers, and against them those 
who understand the true meaning of liberty must ar- 
ray themselves without ceasing. Among these liberal 
and liberalizing elements none has stood forth more 
unequivocally and more constantly than the Jews, 
true to their tradition of being a protesting minority. 
From the bitter experience of their fathers they know 
the frightful results of the unholy alliance between 
church and state in each and every form, and they 
would contribute their share toward saving this people, 
of which they form an integral portion, from the 
evils that stalk in the wake of that alliance. What 
the Jews and others, with convictions similar to theirs 
on this subject, have done in this struggle with the 
reactionaries has contributed toward strengthening 
the foundations whereon this Government rests and 
toward the deepening of the influence of the princi- 
ples of true freedom. Eternal vigilance is still the 
price of liberty; none appreciates this more than we 
Jews, and we believe that we can show our apprecia- 
tion of all that this land of the free stands for, and all 
that it has meant and means for us and ours no more 
fully, than by doing what in our power lies toward 


[ 140 ] 


protesting against every narrowing tendency in the 
life of this people and this Government, and in striv- 
ing in season and out of season for the broadest, most 
liberal, and most liberalizing policy, so that indeed 
“* our America shall be the Sinai of the nations whence 
shall proceed the divine law of liberty that shall sub- 
due and harmonize the world.” 


[141 ] 


THE PLEDGE OF THE AMERICAN JEW 
Address by Jupcre Jutian W. Mack 


“That they should provide for and take care of 
their poor, and that they should not be a burden upon 
the community,” was the agreement of the first Jewish 
settlers who came to this country a quarter of a mil- 
lennium ago. 

How well and faithfully have they and their de- 
scendants throughout this country of ours fulfilled 
the condition then imposed! They have cared for 
their own poor, and though unconscious for many 
years that this was part of the bargain under which 
they were permitted to settle in America, they have 
claimed it, not only as a duty, but also as a privilege, 
to care for their own poor. This duty, prescribed two 
hundred and fifty years ago, has become inbred in the 
Jews of America; and for this reason, and this reason 
only, do we have our separate Jewish charities. ‘Those 
of us that are the most liberal, that believe in the full- 
est sense that charity should be nonsectarian, still 
claim that that which was imposed upon us at that 
time shall now be our right, as it has been for two 
hundred and fifty years past, as it shall be for two 
hundred and fifty years to come. 

Not that the privilege or duty of caring for our 
own has ever marked the limits of Jewish charity. 
Jewish charity is synonymous with charity itself. It 
knows no bounds of country or of creed; and in all 
the tasks of our fellow-countrymen, public or private, 
charitable or otherwise, the Jew ever has been and 


[142 J 


ever will be an active participant. But that we should 
ever remember the condition under which we were per- 
mitted at that time to find a home in this America is 
self-evident, and that every Jew should feel it his duty 
to support to the utmost of his ability those charities 
that are intended to carry out this condition, ought 
to be to him the very first of his obligations. We have 
endeavored faithfully to live up to our responsibilities 
in this respect. We have not always reached the goal 
that we were aiming at. If there be among us any 
who to-day in this time of rejoicing, in this land 
where we have come to our own, in searching their 
consciences feel that they have not contributed in full 
measure to the meeting of that condition to which 
we have ever been pledged, let them resolve now that 
the delinquencies of the past will be made up in the 
future, that the charities of the Jewish community of 
Chicago will ever be supported by them in the full 
measure of duty-bound generosity to which they are 
entitled. 

We Jews, however, have conceived this duty in a 
broader sense. Children of the Book, upon whom the 
mission of liberty of religion has been devolved, we in 
this country have conceived as one of the best exhibi- 
tions of our loyalty to our religious obligations, the 
development of our charitable endeavors. Not merely 
must we support our own charities, but we must make 
them the best and the noblest in the land, that they 
may continue to be, as they have been, an inspiration 
to our fellow-citizens, a model for their communal 
efforts. 

We Jews, however, have never stopped short at the 


[143 ] 


support of our own. We have recognized our duty as 
citizens of our municipality, as citizens of the United 
States, to assist in every upward movement in the 
country, charitable or otherwise. The Jew has ever 
been in the advance in every movement tending to raise 
public life to higher levels and to better private life; 
no reform but has had his active assistance. He has 
never been a seeker for public office; he has never been 
a Democrat or a Republican for the profit that would 
accrue to him. He has been a party man because of 
his belief in the principles of his party; and he has 
been a party man as an American, not as a Jew. The 
Hebrew Democrat and the Hebrew Republican is false 
to the principles of Judaism, is false to himself, when 
he mingles his religion with his politics. The Jew 
who votes for a Jew because he is a Jew, is derelict 
to all that he ought to hold highest. If he votes for 
a Jew because he knows the man and believes him to 
be the better man of the two, well and good; but let 
no one ask the Jew for his support merely on the 
ground that he is a Jew. And let us proclaim in this 
country to all the politicians that there is no Jewish 
vote, that we are Jews in our religion, that we are 
Jews in caring for our own, but that in all else we 
are American citizens—American citizens by our own 
birthright, paid for by the pledge that we made two 
hundred and fifty years ago—aye, even before that 
time; for it was a Jew that gave to Columbus the 
means to come to this country; and there were five 
Jews—a number entirely out of proportion to the 
Jewish population of Spain—that accompanied him 
on his voyages of discovery. The settlement in New 


[144 J 


York two hundred and fifty years ago makes the Jew 
the equal of the Pilgrim, the Puritans of Massachu- 
setts, and the Cavaliers of Maryland and Virginia, in 
claiming this country as their own. 

Grateful are we that a haven of rest was found in 
these United States for the Jew. Grateful is the 
Puritan, himself persecuted as we were, that a similar 
haven was found for him here; and grateful is the 
Catholic that he too was permitted to settle on these 
shores when he was driven by fanaticism from 
countries of Europe. Grateful are we all to the Al- 
mighty that guided our steps hither; grateful are 
we to our fellow-countrymen that none of the excesses 
of Europe has ever stained this land. But beyond 
that, we stand firm and upright, not cringing nor 
fawning, and not pleading for our liberty, but de- 
manding it as our birthright, insisting on equality 
before the law and before men as the inalienable pre- 
rogative of American citizenship. We Jews, settled 
here for two hundred and fifty years, need not bow 
our heads in thanks to, need not crawl before any man 
in America. We stand here the equal of all of them, 
with as much right, purchased in the same way by the 
blood of our ancestors in every war through which this 
country passed, as does the descendant of the Puri- 
tan and the Cavalier. The Jews of America are true 
American citizens in the full sense. Every call of 
their country have they answered with their treas- 
ure and their blood, and every call the country may 
hereafter make will they answer in exactly the same 
measure, to say little, as their fellow-citizens. 

There is one problem confronting the people of this 


[145 ] 


country to-day in which we as Jews have a peculiar 
interest. It is the problem of immigration. We do 
not know what the future holds out for the Jew in 
Russia. ‘Those of us who are optimistic think that 
the terrible calamities of the past few months are not 
indicative of the future course of that country. We 
are hopeful that when the Russian people truly come 
to their own, after the bloodshed necessarily incident 
to their revolution, that the Jew too will come to his 
own as a Russian citizen; and if we are right in this 
prognosis, the immigration of the Russian Jew to 
America will cease. But if perchance we are wrong, 
and if the terrible brutalities of the past months shall 
be continued in the future, we must expect an immi- 
gration infinitely larger than that of 1881 or 1891. 
We Jews of America settled here for two hundred and 
fifty years, must be ready to welcome the oppressed 
of Russia. We must unitedly rise up in this country 
and say to our fellow-citizens that the doors of the 
United States, which have been opened for centuries 
to the oppressed of all lands, shall not now be closed 
to the poor Jews coming here, not temporarily, or as 
a burden upon the community at large, for we our- 
selves shall bear this burden—coming here to found a 
home, as you and your ancestors came perhaps two 
hundred and fifty years ago, perhaps but twenty-five 
years ago. The doors of the United States shall never 
be closed to any decent, honest man coming here to 
settle, to find and to found a home in our country, 
wanting to become an American citizen. 

The danger is great that all sorts of qualifications 
will be suggested which will keep out the brothers of 


[146] 


aa <i 


the Russian Jew, though in twenty-five years from 
now he will be among the leading citizens of this coun- 
try, as now his children are among the children in 
our schools—who soon will be among the first in com- 
merce and in every field of public activity. The dan- 
ger, I repeat, is great that all sorts of qualifications 
will be enacted as a prerequisite to the admission of 
future immigrants. It is our duty, we, immigrants 
ourselves, either in our own persons, or in those of our 
sires, one, two or three generations back—aye, per- 
haps immigrants two hundred and fifty years ago in 
our ancestors—to claim for the oppressed of all lands 
the right under which we ourselves were permitted to 
come here and become American citizens. Those 
privileges should never be denied to any man because 
of his religion, or for any other reason, as long as 
our country is able to sustain the millions of new 
comers, provided the immigrant comes not as a tem- 
porary guest but to make his home, and that of his 
family in this land, to raise his children to be, and to 
become himself, honest, law-abiding, American citi- 
zens. 


[147] 


THE CONCORDANCE OF JUDAISM AND 
AMERICANISM 


Address by Rev. Dr. E. G. Hirscu 


Where the Canadian Pacific, that mighty miracle 
of modern man’s daring and doing, winds its ever 
narrowing embrace of steel arms around the giant 
frame and then the snow-hooded brow of the moun- 
tain sentries mounting the guard over the Rockies’ 
midcontinental bastion, the wondering traveler 
wheeled along this imperial highway’s upward coil 
in dramatic suddenness is brought face to face with 
one of the most striking exhibitions of Nature’s curi- 
ous capriciousness. However much he may have been 
impressed with the defiant boldness that reckoned not 
the menace of the roaring canyons over which bridge 
and span are thrown in proud unconcern, or with the 
stupendous assumption of security that holds in con- 
tempt the perils of precipices along which the road- 
bed skirts with tenacious grit; when at the great 
divide he notices how the chance interval of a hair’s- 
breadth between the peak’s wrinkles determines the 
direction of the water rills and the leaping cascades, 
he is stirred to reflection as by no other observation. 
Twin children of the clouds, cradled in one nursery, 
the raindrops are here bidden separate. One rushes 
on to his destiny, meeting in his descent the morning’s 
sun, the other hastens to his goal in the van of the 
evening’s approach. Spun on the same loom, one sil- 
very ribbon unwinds its broadening folds until they 
are tangled in the Atlantic’s mightier nettings; the 


[ 148 } 


other unbobbins its stretching lengths to festoon the 
slopes inclining toward the Pacific. Though he know 
the law which compels one of heaven’s tears to seek its 
grave in the birth chamber of the day-star, and the 
other to hasten to its funeral in advance of the sink- 
ing sun, at the impressive recognition of the phenom- 
enon in the concrete, the observant witness is involun- 
tarily oppressed by the consciousness that similar 
* accidents ”? determine the direction of men’s grop- 
ings, and enforce divergency of paths leading to dif- 
ferent and widely separated destinies. 

But this depressing obsession soon yields to the in- 
spiring certainty that only in the seeming, whim and 
chance preside over the allotting of our fortune. 
Closer attention to the intention which underlies Na- 
ture’s dividing decree soon will reveal that underneath 
the superficial divergence is operative concordance of 
duty. Both waterdrops that at the line must part 
from each other, are commissioned to one and the same 
task. It is theirs to coax forth flowers, to fertilize field 
and forest. Both are messengers and ministers of life. 
And again when they shall have reached their re- 
spective goals, be it the sea which laps the Eastern 
shores or that which sings the lullaby to the Western 
States, the miracle of the resurrection which awaits 
them will wing both alike to new upward flight and 
on the heights their divided destinies will finally con- 
verge. Seemingly doomed to eternal separation, 
snowflakes and dewdrops that part company at the 
divide are foreordained to identity of obligation. 

Thus, when closer analysis unfolds this ethical pur- 
pose, which, cloaked or clear, is always fundamental 


[149 ] 


in the Universe and which is never dissipated even 
when the factoring process seems to reduce the all 
to incoherent fragments, caprice of division is at once 
lifted to the potency of planned appointment. Acci- 
dent under this view takes on the consecration of voca- 
tion. Differences are blotted out in the recognition 
that they are means to an end, and in the prevision of 
this end, divergence of paths sinks out of sight, while 
identity of responsibility, which neutralizes all vari- 
ance of direction, looms up large. Name the water- 
sheds which force division and divergence upon men 
what you will, race, religion, nationality, at the great 
divide the space which separates is infinitesimal. 
These channels through which humanity runs on to 
its goal are means to acommonend. On all them that 
along these divergent paths apparently tend apart in 
contrary directions, one common burden is imposed. 
Theirs is the equality of function under the variety 
and difference of equipment. Like the river systems 
draining into different oceans, the various and differ- 
ently endowed components of humanity are appointed 
to fill earth with life, ever enriching and deepening and 
broadening. This conception reconciles diversity 
with unity. It sees in the polychrome spectrum only 
unfolding white light. 

Little dower of imagination, I hold, is competent to 
apply the pathos and poetry of the watershed’s influ- 
ence upon the direction of the raindrop’s ambition, to 
the symphonic theme of this memorial day’s chorus. 
At first hearing, its jubilant notes seem to carry the 
invitation to remember differences. It is the landing 
of Jews that it commemorates. It seems to emphasize 


[150] 


those distinctions that set off the Jew from his neigh- 
bor. Or, again, if stress be laid on the country’s name 
whose hospitality these earliest immigrants of Jew- 
ish origin claimed, the intention of our synagogal 
celebration may be misunderstood, as planned to throw 
on the screen the peculiarities of American Israel, en- 
larged out of all proportion, and thus invigorate the 
American Jew’s insistence upon being accorded a dis- 
tinct position of his own in the common household of 
Israel. 

But give this day’s jubilee overture a second hear- 
ing! If it be true—and it is—that man is microcos- 
mic reproduction of the Universe’s macrocosmos, then 
it is equally beyond all doubt that in the plan of God, 
nations and peoples are called to be microcosmic illus- 
trations of the plan of the macrocosmic humanity. 
To the American nation was assigned task and oppor- 
tunity to exemplify essential unity, notwithstanding 
the influence of the various watersheds at which the 
lines of descent diverge. Almost all the races of the 
planet have made this land their trysting ground. 
Hither they have brought the best and strongest which 
it was theirs to develop. Religion in this country, re- 
enacts the Pentacostal outpouring; the flaming 
tongues that token of the spirit, speak their message 
in varied tones and widely differing dialects. Social 
customs, the ripples from many distant sources, give 
color and mobility to home and exclusive circles. Even 
in press and on the platform, in our streets and vil- 
lages, the confusion of languages is documented. This 
exceeding abundance of variety constitutes one of the 
secrets of this nation’s nervous vitality. Apparent 


[151] 


discordance results under the consecration of patriot- 
ism in effective harmony. True, this morning’s festal 
reveille stirs to glad reflection only a little more than 
one of the eighty millions of God’s children that call 
America mother or spouse. Yet, it is not in conflict 
with, nay, it is in confirmation of America’s distinc- 
tive genius that the commemorative occasion addresses 
its call to one alone of its many components and con- 
tributors. E pluribus unum formulates a truth, radi- 
antly visible in the vision of this day. By rejoicing as 
Jews we are accentuating our Americanism. 

And in similar manner the pride of our American- 
ism which possesses our heart and is yearning for ex- 
pression to-day, is not a protest against, it is a procla- 
mation of our fidelity to our Judaism. Like America, 
Judaism has been appointed to pattern the richer 
diversities of polychrome human life. Its aspects 
are many; its vocalizations numerous. Catholic 
Israel wears neither the uniform of military barracks 
nor the livery of the penitentiary. Its is Joseph’s 
coat of many colors. This continent has augmented 
the prophecies and proclamations of Judaism by an- 
other variation. This new articulation again is not 
rigid. It is vital and therefore flexible. In this, its 
elasticity and vitality, American Judaism only con- 
forms to the historic plasticity of Pan-Judaism and 
carries it out to fuller productivity. It looks like an 
accident that we were directed at the watershed Amer- 
icanward, while millions of brothers were sent into 

‘Russia. To our lot fell American citizenship, to theirs 
slave service in the house of bondage more oppressive 
_than ever was Mizraim. But that “ accident ” signi- 


[ 152 ] 


fies duty. In emphasizing now our Americanism, we 
vow to be true all the more devotedly to the obligation 
that our Judaism imposes. 

In fact, he is ignorant of the implications of Ameri- 
canism and Judaism both, who would hold that be- 
tween them towers a mountain range decreeing and 
enforcing their divergent separation. The contrast, 
not to say conflict, between them, I know, is commonly 
summarized in the statement that America names the 
civilization of hopeful prospect, Judaism that of re- 
gretful retrospect. The latter is a tearful memory, 
the former a joyful anticipation. Tradition is Juda- 
ism’s store; outlook, America’s strength. No more 
arrogant misconception was ever coined than this art- 
fully pointed antithesis. Judaism is, if anything, 
the one religion of impatient prospect and ecstatic 
prevision of the unborn to-morrow. America has its 
traditions as clearly determinative as are the influ- 
ences of the past that anchor Judaism to its historic 
moorings. The traditions of America reach back 
further than the discovery of the continent. Our 
jurisprudence is grounded on the old common law of 
England. And in these precolonial traditions, which 
have been among the most prolific stimuli of American 
thought, conduct, and character, Judaism has had a 
dominant part. In the Mayflower, our Bible crossed 
the Atlantic. At Plymouth Rock in sober reality the 
Pentateuch was recognized as one of the inspirations 
of the young commonwealth. The Puritans were, in- 
deed, more Hebraic than were the Jews who landed 
thirty-six years later. Narrow were they, but their 
narrowness was ransomed by their strength. Serious 


[ 153 ] 


were they, but their seriousness dowered them with the 
fortitude without which none may hope to yoke un- 
tamed nature to his purposes. Puritan Hebrewism 
alone enabled the Pilgrims to exercise dominion over 
the wilds of their new home. This Puritan spirit 
was nursed at the breast of Jewish literature. It was 
the gift laid by old Judaism into the cradle of this 
new civilization. It had share in preparing the advent 
of the era of independence, as in the thinking of the 
men that later phrased our political documents un- 
doubtedly Old Testament principles had had determi- 
nating influence. 

One who can pierce through verbal husk to inner 
kernel can harbor no doubt on the essential concord- 
ance of Americanism and Judaism. The stronger the 
Jew in us, the more loyal the American in us will 
grow to be. What is the fundamental announcement 
of Judaism? You say the “unity of God.” This 
may and may not name the characteristic element. 
What if the One God were conceived of as a forbid- 
ding despot? There have been those among our ene- 
mies to misconstrue in this wise the meaning of our 
monotheism. They have said that the Jew, in declar- 
ing his God to be One, proclaims the rulership of an 
autocrat whose caprice alone tempered by bribes is 
the final arbiter of the world’s and the human race’s 
fate. This monotheism, they proceed to explain, is 
therefore differentiated from polytheism only in its 
numerical notation. I adduce this misrepresentation 
for the purpose of demonstrating the advisability of 
qualifying our definition. Ethical is the attribute 
usually introduced to distinguish the monotheism of 


[154] 


Judaism. But what does the phrase signify? A 
German thinker of fame tells us that all religion is 
anthropology. In the doctrine concerning man, flow- 
ers into view the true content of our consciousness of 
God’s all-pervading, all-sustaining presence. One 
God is the highest expression of our conviction that 
as every man is created in the image of God, every 
man by his birthright is the equal of every other man. 
Every man as partaking of divinity has a value which 
is independent of all the accidents due to the action 
of the watersheds. Man having a value inherent in 
his humanity, has personality, and therefore has no 
price. Things may be purchased, persons cannot. 
The value of man is inexpressible in terms of the 
market. Men are not like the products of mine or 
mill equivalented in coin. Low or lofty, every man 
incarnates something inalienable which is not affected 
by circumstance. In this something roots his free 
sovereignty. 

Is not America’s political creed the practical execu- 
tion and activization of these fundamental conceptions 
of Judaism? Judaism’s philosophy spreads the basis 
whereon rests the political practice of America. No 
other justification is there for the assumption that 
men are born free and equal than the conception of 
man as the incarnation of the divine, his personality 
constituting his unpurchasable worth and being the 
exponent of the One in whose image all alike are 
created. 

This inalienable freedom of man is the freedom to 
live out the law of his being. Law and freedom are 
not contraries; they are complementaries. Judaism, 


‘ [155 ] 


the religion of freedom, was of necessity also that of 
the Law. To whatever degree the Talmudic system 
through micrology may have mechanicalized the Law, 
none who understands the character of Judaism but 
must insist that liberty to activize the freedom which 
it posits as inherent in man’s participation in divinity, 
postulates submission to the high law of moral 
majesty and final supremacy. The law of the moral 
order is imperfectly expressed in the self-given law 
of state and society. Law is liberty potentialized, 
liberty is law actualized. ‘The American’s passion 
for liberty vouchsafed by law and for law grounded 
in liberty, is foreshadowed and sanctified in the teach- 
ings of Judaism. 

But the congruence of Judaism and Americanism 
extends further. Judaism postulates-codperation and 
coérdination, as the principle of organized society. 
In the chapter all the richer in truth because it echoes 
old mythology, which records the creation of man, 
the duty and destiny of this last of God’s creative 
acts is defined as rulership over all the preceding 
works of God. ‘“ They,” in the plural shall have 
dominion, is the phraseology of the account. In 
other words, one man is incompetent to fulfill this ap- 
pointment. No man may be spared in the realiza- 
tion of this aim. Through codperation and codrdi- 
nation of effort and purpose in ever larger scope, the 
divinely decreed destiny will be attained. Our politi- 
cal method is codperative and establishes the coérdina- 
tion of the various organs. Our national Constitu- 
tion is often described as a noble compromise. It had 
to be this as exponential of the principles under which 


[ 156 ] 


alone freedom and law can be made effective, viz., 
codperation and coordination. But not only that 
written charter, the very life of the nation’s plan of 
self-government is imbued with these principles and 
informed by them. Home autonomy and national 
authority are the two poles. America begins with the 
free individual, leads him for codperation with other 
free individuals, his equals along ascending steps, to 
come to the town meeting, which then expands into 
the municipality and county, these autonomous cor- 
porations growing into the State, and the States 
finally constitutmg the Union. Above the Union 
the unwritten yet wonderfully effective Highest Law, 
the law not only of this nation but of all nations, the 
Law which is the outflow of the Moral Order of the 
Universe, the moral meaning of all humanity’s striv- 
ings and struggles. If the Jewish Commonwealth 
was a Theocracy, our Government is also in the true 
sense of the term theocratic. The implications of the 
belief in the One God are basic to our democracy. 
Often antagonism is predicted of Judaism, as of 
religion in general, to the buoyant, energetic spirit of 
America, its assertive self-conscious self-reliant real- ° 
ism. How far this suspicion is justified in the case of 
other religions, it is not for me to verify. Against 
Judaism the imputation cannot be maintained. I 
know that in some synagogues the conceit has been 
encouraged which would make of Judaism another 
scheme of salvation, a preparation for and an assur- 
ance of immortality. Under this misapprehension, in- 
deed, Judaism would have little sympathy with the 
realities of this world; nor would it have any but an 


[157] 


indistinct message for this life. But is other-worldli- 
ness the dominant in Judaism’s proclamation, or the 
inspiration of its prophecy? Clearly not. Judaism 
would inform this life, this world. It would, through 
its spirit, transmute conditions and characters here 
and now. It was the first to pray “ Thy Kingdom 
come.” But this kingdom, this Olam ha-ba was not 
beyond the cloud. Its portals were not those of the 
grave. That world to be, which is the vision of Israel’s 
hope and faith, is this world of ours reconstituted 
under the sanctifying, reforming sway of justice, 
righteousness, and love. With justice triumphant, 
righteousness socialized, Judaism hails the advent of 
the Messianic age when conditions on earth will be 
such that no man is denied opportunity to realize his 
own divinity. ‘Therefore, the dominion of religion ac- 
cording to our doctrine is coextensive with the range 
of life. Rail out of the plentitude of your prejudices 
at Talmudic ritualism. That ritualism is perhaps the 
caricature but still the expression of the vital truth 
that nothing in life is indifferent to religion. The 
most trivial acts are tremendous acts. ‘There is no 
divide at which the secular parts company from the 
sacred. Religion must be in all things, or it is in 
nothing. ‘That misinterpreted phrase “ My King- 
dom is not of this world,” as understood by Catholic 
Christianity and Calvinistic theology, has no place in 
the dictionary of Judaism. 

Judaism as a religion has concern with commerce 
and industry. It is characteristic of Judaism’s real- 
ism that on the “ tables of the law,” doctrine preludes 
duty. “Thou shalt not steal” was as solemnly 


[158 ] 


thundered forth as “I am the Eternal.” This con- 
struction of Judaism as ideal realism, as passion for 
righting things of this world, as preparation not for 
death but for the perfect “ world to be,” the perfect 
state and social order of the future, is not new. It 
is the burden of the prophet’s censure and caution; 
_ it is the content of Pentateuchal legislative provision. 
The Rabbis express this conviction when they observe 
that the Torah was not given to the Angels, and de- 
scribe the dramatic reception of Moses in the council 
chamber of God when come to claim for earth the 
Torah. The angels objected. But at the bidding of 
the Holy One, the son of Amram proves that angels 
need not the Law; that its commands apply to men 
and earth alone. How far have they strayed from 
genuine Judaism who would have the Jewish pulpit 
be silent on the injustices of earth, the maladjustment 
of society, and under the plea that Temple and Syna- 
gogue must be sacred to religion, would have religion 
shrink into a contrivance to arouse pleasurable emo- 
tions in the worshiper—ecstatic, sensuous foregleams 
of heaven felicities; into an apothecary’s laboratory 
where patent drugs are concocted for the easing of 
heartache, or opiates are held in readiness for the 
dulling of grief and pain at the death of dear ones. 
Religion consoles and eases, but only when it stimu- 
lates to action, when it quickens conscience and directs 
aright conduct. Remember, great Rabbis exposed the 
iniquity of negro slavery from their pulpits. Re- 
member that our greatest Reform teacher, David 
Einhorn, used to say “no politics in religion but by 
all means religion in politics.” Negro slavery has 


[159 ] 


been wiped out, but alas! other and worse slavery still 
prevails in this world of ours. Shall they who hear 
the clanking of the chains forego speaking through 
their old Jewish prayer-book praises to God thrice 
daily, for having led His people from bondage of 
slavery? No, Judaism is for this world! Its genius 
of hopeful realism has syllabled the spiritual message 
which a people like that of the United States is in 
need of. Because its kingdom is not beyond the clouds, 
but a vision of justice and freedom realized in the 
tents of man, Judaism strikes the note that sets vibrat- 
ing the heart of America similarly attuned to ener- 
getic realism, similarly tender to the sufferer from 
injustice, similarly hopeful of the future dawn of 
universal peace and liberty, 

Our reform Judaism has come to understand in 
fullest measure this concordance of its own genius 
with that of the institutions and the soul of America. 
We feel that if anywhere on God’s footstool our Mes- 
sianic vision will be made real, it is in this land where 
a new humanity seems destined to arise. Not to Jeru- 
salem are our eyes turned, but to God! We cannot 
honestly declare that we are here in exile. We can- 
not honestly petition that we be led back to- Palestine _ 
as our country. We have a country which is ours by 
the right of our being identified with its destinies, our 
being devoted to its welfare, our sharing its trials, 
our rejoicing in its triumphs. Two hundred and fifty 
years has the Jew sojourned in this country. He is 
not an alien here. His views of liberty and law, of 
man’s inalienable rights and duties hallowed by the 
sublimities of his religion, are in creative concordance 


[ 160 ] 


with the distinctive principles pillaring American 
civilization. 

Not an alien, the Jewish American has the right to 
ask that now, when in darkest Europe, humanity is 
outraged, this, his land, remain hospitable to all that 
would escape from the hell of persecution and intoler- 
ance, and like the Pilgrim Fathers of Puritan faith 
and the first Jews, the vanguard of the million and 
two hundred thousand American Jews, would make 
this land their home. The Jew in America, as we have 
the good right to say, has been faithful to his 
pledges. The community at large was not burdened 
in consequence of its generous and just policy of the 
open door. Whatever may come now, we shall assume 
the same responsibility without haggling. 

I myself, an immigrant, and you, the children of 
immigrants, if not immigrants yourselves, must pre- 
pare to receive new thousands of immigrants from 
Russia, which is a hell; from Roumania, which is an 
inferno. We must ransom the pledge given by those 
who settled two hundred and fifty years ago, that 
** none of ours shall be a burden on the community.” 
In this awful calamity all American Jewry must band 
and stand together. It is a duty we owe to Judaism 
and to America; one of the many obligations in which 
our Judaism emphasizes what our Americanism 
tokens; in which our Americanism proves that it is 
harmoniously attuned to the most profound and most 
solemn declarations of our Judaism. The flag shall 
welcome the new pilgrims, and our faith shall make 
them know that their tottering steps shall be sup- 
ported and their trembling hands shall be upheld 


[ 161 ] 


after the terrible afflictions laid on them in the land 
of their birth, the land of despotic brutality, of de- 
humanized barbarism. 

Great is the joy which may possess our heart. Our 
escutcheon as Americans is without stain. We have 
had a share in the making of this nation. In the mine 
and in the mill, at the lathe and at the loom, in count- 
ing room and council chamber, the Jew has been at 
work for two centuries and a half for his America. — 
He has sentried his nation’s camp; he has been in the 
mast’s lookout on his nation’s ships; he has gone out 
to battle, and he was among them that fell at the firing 
line. Officer, private, whatever his rank, when the 
nation asked for life or limb, he did not hesitate to 
offer the sacrifice. In institutions of learning the Jew 
has made his mark. In the walks of enterprise his 
individuality has been felt as a telling potency in the 
development of the greater aims of American energy. 
In the professions he stands high; on the bench he has 
often had representation by the best among the best; 
in the pulpits of the land, the Jew has not been in the 
last and lowest ranks. In Boston, I believe, these 
days they will commemorate Garrison’s services. This 
offers an opportunity to dwell once more upon facts 
often overlooked, and therefore all the more worthy 
of being pointed out, that in that struggle against 
slavery none was more eager, none was more enthusi- 
astic than the leader of American Reform Judaism. 
And in evidence how intensely wedded to liberty is 
Judaism, his voice found strong support in the pulpit 
of the most orthodox Portuguese synagogue of Phila- 
delphia. Ready to die, if necessary, among those that 


[ 162 ] 


spoke against slavery, at risk of life and position, 
were David Einhorn and Sabato Morais. 

We have earned the right to call this our country. 
The future will place new solemn obligations upon us 
for the country’s sake and as Judaism’s consecration ; 
-we shall not shirk our duties. Happy we American 
Jews that have a country. America is ours. We can 
sing with all others, 


My country, ’tis of thee! 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing; 

Land where my fathers died, 
Land of our Pilgrims’ pride. 


The watershed separates raindrops and snowflakes 
to divergent destiny. Race, religion, birth, and con- 
dition, also seem to divide. But on the heights the line 
of separation is thin; and in duty again all difference 
of direction is consecrated to unity of purpose. In 
our nation no divides but are instrumentalities of serv- 
ice. Clinging to his Judaism, the Jew will be a more 
strenuous, a more loyal, a more enthusiastic American. 

May God bless our country; keep it in His pro- 
tection. May His light shine out o’er it, and His 
peace abide and abound in it. This is the prayer of 
the Jew on this, the Jewish-American anniversary day 
of joy and solemn resolves. Answer it, God in heaven, 
in Thy mercy. Amen, Amen! 


[ 163 ] 


ADDRESS BY REV. DR. M. HELLER 


Our President, in his proclamation of Thanksgiv- 
ing, recalls the grim conditions of hardship, priva- 
tion, and constant danger under which, nearly three 
hundred years ago, the Puritan pioneers set aside a 
day for public thanks to God, a day which has be- 
come, alongside with our marvelous growth and un- 
paralleled prosperity, a national institution. 

The American Jew, blessed with peace and plenty 
almost beyond his brothers in any other land, has 
special reasons for joining whole-heartedly with his 
fellow-citizens in a festival for which his Bible fur- 
nished the pattern, in which his prophets would have 
recognized a foreshadowing of the brotherhood-faith 
at the end of time. The hymn of gratitude, the Halle- 
lujah psalm, is innocent of creed assertion or of sec- 
tarian barrier. We are all human in our need of God’s 
blessing, all children while we are joying in His good- 
ness. God’s house, at such a time, becomes, in very 
deed, as our seers yearned it should be, a “ house of 
prayer for all the nations.” 

Not because we wish to group ourselves apart in 
the general chorus, but because our special thanks 
accord perfectly with the universal service, we have 
raised this day out of the ordinary succession of 
thanksgiving days by commemorating thereon the 
quarter-millennial anniversary of Jewish settlement 
in the United States. It is matter for profound grati- 
tude that we can look back in these United States with 
a sense of congratulation upon all these years of un- 
disturbed peace and steadfast growth; it is because 


[ 164] 


we cannot feel ourselves other than a part of the great 
citizenship of this blessed country that we refuse to 
set aside a separate day, but would rather join our 
celebration with the general observance. 

It was in the month of September of the year 1654 
that in the quaint American-Dutch town of New 
_ Amsterdam there landed with the vessel St. Cata- 
rina a party of twenty-three Jewish refugees. They 
came from Brazil, where they had fought bravely, but 
in vain, to assist the Dutch against the victorious 
Portuguese. They arrived virtually penniless; hay- 
ing been unable to pay the passage money, their goods 
were seized, two of the party imprisoned, until the 
wealthier could obtain money from Holland to pay 
for the poorer members of the party. The bigoted 
and testy governor, Peter Stuyvesant, was for ship- 
ping them back at once; he would have no Jews in 
his colony. But his masters of the Dutch West 
India Company, though they called the arrival an 
‘invasion,’ would not hear of any such injustice; 
they directed him to permit these men to settle and 
trade “ provided the poor among them shall not be- 
come a burden to the company or the community, but 
be supported by their own nation.” 

Even the Dutch West India Company, however, 
drew certain limits around the fairness for which it 
contended against the alarmed Stuyvesant. The 
Jews were not to be admitted to public office; they 
were to be kept out of the retail trade; their worship 
was to be altogether private; their houses to be built 
“close together.” The new settlers had not been a 
year on these shores when they petitioned for the 


[ 165 ] 


right of mounting guard with their fellow-citizens in 
defense of their new homes ; that, too, was denied them ; 
to bake and sell bread “ with closed doors ” was too 
valuable a privilege to accord the Jews; yet, in the 
course of less than three years, these men and their . 
successors had approved themselves of such mettle 
that they were admitted to burgher rights and that 
one barrier of restraint after another fell away before 
them. I have not dwelt upon these modest, yet not 
unworthy, origins from any foolish pride of priority 
in settlement. It matters comparatively little that the 
Jew arrived on these shores only a few years after 
Puritan and Pilgrim, that he preceded the German 
and the Irish immigration; I thank a kind Provi- 
dence, for my part, that the St. Catarina has not 
become a kind of Jewish Mayflower, to whose list of 
passengers silly people might refer in proof of the 
blueness of their blood or the exalted character of their 
lineage; to me the humblest Russian refugee, escap- 
ing from the terrors of the “ Holy Empire,” is as 
much of an aristocrat as any member of that proud — 
multi-millionaire family whose German ancestor beat 
furs at a dollar a day for his Jewish employer. 

But our finicky civilization has hit upon the word 
* alien ” by which neatly to circumscribe the horror- 
haunted Jew when it wishes to slam in his care-fur- 
rowed face the door of refuge. The proud Anglo- 
Saxon countries, pioneers and colonizers of the world, 
empire builders on foundations of breezy manliness, 
have been stricken with fear of the “ alien,’ who 
might take the bread from their mouths; partly as 
a sop to the labor vote, partly because immigration 


piles | 


has “ degenerated,” they devise restrictions by which 
to make more difficult for the robbed and hunger- 
stricken refugee the entrance to the land of his dreams. 

For the Jew, here or anywhere else, “ alien” is a 
singularly unfitting designation. He has never been 
voluntarily a wanderer, any more than he was, in 
darker ages, by choice an outcast. He does not lack 
the sturdy fiber of the pioneer; witness the Jews who 
encouraged and financed the voyages of Columbus and 
those who sailed with him and the Portuguese dis- 
coverers ; witness the hardy Jewish settlers of South 
Africa and Australia, our own forty-niners and gold 
hunters of the Yukon; way out on the Nairobi plateau 
the Zionists found Jewish settlers, even while they 
were examining the virgin country to report whether 
England’s offer should be accepted or declined by 
their congress. 

The Jew, whenever he migrated in masses, was 
driven, not by visions of wealth, but by cruel intoler- 
ance; these Brazilians were fleeing from the Inquisi- 
tion, as the Russian Jew, overwhelmed after a brave 
defense, is turning his back upon the benighted coun- 
try of Pobiedonostseff. 

The people that loved their own country of Pales- 
tine with a deathless affection which has outlasted cen- 
turies of exile, the people that clung to their beloved 
Spain with torture and stake ever before their eyes, 
that people is loyal even to the most cruel of step- 
fatherlands ; when in New York at a mass meeting of 
Jews the liberation of Russia was announced there 
were hundreds with tears streaming down their faces, 
who declared themselves ready to return at once to the 


[ 167 ] 


land where they had seen so much misery, to which 
yet, in their hearts, they had never renounced alle- 
glance. 

Not apologetically, upon abject defense against 
untiring slanderers, but as men, conscious of their 
worth, American Jews may to-day point with calm 
pride to the record of their patriotic service during 
this quarter of a millennium. Small as were their num- 
bers in this country prior to the immigration move- 
ments of the last century, we find their names among 
the builders of the infant colony ; Lord Bellamont rec- 
ognizes gratefully their financial support; they figure 
among the charter members of commercial bodies and 
exchanges ; as provision agents for the army, as con- 
tributors to the erection of Christian churches, they 
prove themselves capable in business and enlightened 
in their ideas. 

How warmly they participated in the struggles of 
the revolution is known to every student of American 
history ; it reminds us of our own unforgettable Dr. 
Gutheim and his patriotism during the secession era, 
to read of Rabbi Gershom Mendez Seixas leaving New 
York with most of the members of this community 
when it was about to be occupied by the British; the 
services of Isaac Moses to Robert Morris; the ines- 
timable and unrequited sacrifices of Haym Salomon | 
to whom James Madison describes himself as a pen- 
sioner upon his bounty ; the enthusiastic participation 
_ of Jews, from common soldiers to colonel, in the hard- 
ships and exploits of Washington’s campaigns; all 
these are matters of record. That we have borne more 
than our share in every subsequent crisis, that the Jew 


[ 168 ] 


has proved himself, in every walk of life a peaceful, 
industrious, home-loving, and law-abiding member of 
the commonwealth it is not for us to dwell upon; suf- 
fice it to say that whenever the history of these two 
hundred and fifty years of our dwelling in this blessed 
land shall be written, it may contain here and there a 
line that we might wish blotted out, but it will stand 
unafraid and unashamed by the side of the services and 
achievements of any other element in our varied popu- 
lation. 

It is not, however, of our merits that we ought to 
think to-day with no matter how justifiable a pride, 
but rather of our obligations to Providence in the first 
place, to this glorious country in the second. ‘ Our 
lines have fallen in pleasant places, yea, our heritage 
is pleasing unto us.” Just at this particular moment 
when from the East there is borne to us the heart-rend- 
ing cry of our stricken brothers, when we read, with a 
shudder, of what insane ferocities a frenzied mob is 
capable, must we not thank God, with redoubled fer- 
vor, for the goodly, broad, and ample land in which He 
has placed our lot, for its boundless opportunities, its 
well-appointed, straight-steering Government, above 
all for the spirit of equity and freedom which is not 
merely embodied in its laws, but a possession of its 
people? 

Looking back upon our small beginnings and for- 
ward to the unfoldment that still awaits us, ought we 
not, from the view, to bring away with us a warmer 
allegiance to all the wealth of example and ideal which 
the past has transmitted, a more patriotic fealty to 
every principle of freedom and justice, of humanity 


[ 169 ] 


and peace which has made our American civilization 
the beacon light for all aspiring mankind? How else 
can we attest the genuineness of our gratitude than by 
the patriotism that will challenge every test of sin- 
cerity? How otherwise than by standing guardians 
over every endangered tradition of enlightened citi- 
zenship, of high-aiming polity, of fearless and gen- 
erous manhood which our Washingtons and our 
Franklins, our Jeffersons and our Lincolns have 
bequeathed us? 

The Jew is the chosen martyr of inhumanity ; wher- 
ever men still grope in darkness, wherever the world is 
still the old primeval forest of savagery with beasts of 
prey prowling to devour the feeble, there is the Jew 
the victim, whether of murder and assault and arson, 
or of slander, discrimination, and ostracism. Haunted 
by the furies of bigotry, he must clutch in convul- 
sive grasp the Book, heirloom and testament of his 
fathers, which bids him labor for the triumph of 
freedom, justice, and peace ; with the Egyptians behind 
him, God’s pillar of cloud points out to him the one 
road to his ultimate land of paradise. He sees in the 
fathers of this country, in the Puritan and the Pil- 
grim, in its champions of freedom, in its advocates of 
humanity, true spiritual heirs of the prophetic spirit ; 
and it is by their sacred names that he vows an eternal 
enmity to all the foes; of bossism and corruption, of 
greed and dishonesty, of luxurious indolence and 
cynic indifference, of tyranny, bigotry, and indif- 
ference that threaten to sap the foundations of this 
noble structure; he pledges himself to lead and to do 
valiant battle for the preservation of all that has made 


[170] 


these United States not merely a world power of 
bristling warships and serried armies, but a world in- 
fluence and a world refuge for peace and fairness and 
humane service among the nations of the world. 
Amen! 


piv] 


ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR PARDEE, OF 
CALIFORNIA 


The celebration of a two hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary is for most of us Americans the commemora- 
tion of a tolerably ancient historical event, but such 
an occurrence is merely an affair of yesterday for a 
people whose annals began before Rome or Babylon. 
The Jew is at once the oldest and the most modern 
of races, fully meriting in this respect the remarkable 
tribute of Mark Twain, which I cannot do better than 
to quote: “ The Egyptian, the Babylonian, the Per- 
sian,” he said, “ rose, filled the planet with sound and 
splendor, then faded to dream stuff and passed away ; 
the Greek and Roman followed and made a vast noise, 
and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and 
held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, 
and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. . . . 
All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces 
pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immor- 
tality? ” 

The Jewish state, in due time, went to pieces, like 
all other great states of antiquity, but the Jewish peo- 
ple, unlike other peoples of the Old World, are still 
with us, distinct, individual, unmistakable; that con- 
stitutes the marked difference between them and other 
races. Even though dispersed to the ends of the earth, 
they remain a force and play an even more important 
part in the modern world than they did in the an- 
cient one. The prophets of Israel spoke truly when 
they said this people had been chosen for a great 
destiny. 


[172 ] 


In this New World, to which the Jewish pioneers 
came two hundred and fifty years ago, the experience 
of the race was fated to differ a good deal from that 
in the older one. It has been a pretty good world for 
the Jew, the same as it has been for the rest of us. He 
has here escaped the persecutions which have followed 
him continually in the other hemisphere. It is said 
those nations are the happiest which have no history, 
and it can almost be said that in America, as a race, 
the Jew has no history, merely because he has not been 
hunted and outlawed. The Jew has made contribu- 
tions to the sum total of our national achievements, 
but he has done it as an individual and not as a class. 
He has always been a good American. In the Revo- 
lution, when there were but few Jews in the country, 
they fought in the patriot armies and contributed of 
their wealth to the scanty resources of the Continental 
Congress. In the War of 1812, the war with Mexico, 
and the Civil and Spanish wars, the Jew was always 
well to the front as a soldier. The Jew seldom makes 
it his trade to fight, but when he considers fighting a 
duty, he can perform it fearlessly. 

But it is in the arts of peace and not of war that 
the Jew in America has made his best record, for he 
is essentially industrious and thrifty. He has been the 
leading financier of a thousand prosperous communi- 
ties. He has been enterprising and aggressive. His 
genius for commerce has here had free play, and he 
has a little more than held his own with all competitors. 
Withal, he has been a good citizen. He has been one 
of the best friends of the public school, to which he 
generally sends his children, whether he be rich or poor. 


[173] 


He believes in education. He wants his sons to have 
the best training to enable them to do their part in 
the world’s work. He is a liberal supporter of col- 
leges, libraries, hospitals, and relief societies. He 
takes care of the poor of his own race and helps care 
for other people’s poor. He possesses human sym- 
pathy, and it is backed up by business judgment. 
When he establishes a charity it is very sure to be well 
administered. He has a gift for practical idealism. 
He is an organizer and believes in associated effort. 
He is able to “ get together.” Whatever movement 
may be on foot to promote the welfare of a community 
—whether it be to organize a chamber of commerce, 
to establish a new bank, or to build a big hotel—the 
Jewish business-man is sure to do his part. He is 
naturally conservative, but at the same time enter- 
prising. 

In Europe, during the last few centuries, the Jew- 
ish race has given the world an extraordinary num- 
ber of men and women of genius, demonstrating that 
the inspiration of the old Hebrew prophets and poets 
has lost none of its genuineness in its descent of three 
thousand years. There is no field of knowledge which 
Jewish scholars have not cultivated with success—his- 
tory, geography, mathematics, philology, philosophy, 
physics, medicine, law, music, and the fine arts. In 
the history of all the sciences, there are eminent 
Jewish names. It would be an honor to any race to 
have produced a Spinoza, a Herschell, a Mendelssohn 
Bartholdy, and a Heine. To these names I might add 
Lasalle, Bendavid, Beer, Wilna, Mendelssohn, Halevy, 
Meyerbeer, Moscheles, Auerbach, Zangwill, Joachim, 


[174] 


Rubenstein, Wieniawski, Rachel, Grisi, Bernhardt, 
and a long list of others. 

All of these famous names belong, of course, to Eu- 
rope and not to America, but in philosophy and music 
this country has not yet commenced to have any great 
names belonging to any race, and until recently the 
Jewish population has been merely a handful and very 
busily occupied in quite different pursuits. The finer 
fruits of its genius will ripen here as elsewhere in due 
time. 

The number of Jews in the United States, now 
amounting to about a million and a half, has been 
recruited very rapidly, as you know, during the last 
twenty years, and the immigration promises to con- 
tinue large, so long as the present unhappy conditions 
prevail in Russia. That country, which is now the 
scene of a great civil convulsion, contains half of 
all the Jews in the world, and they are being driven 
to emigrate by the studied policy of their rulers. The 
great churchman, Pobiedonostseff, the zealot who has 
dominated the civil and religious policy of the empire 
during the reactionary reigns of Alexander III and 
Nicholas II, is said to have boasted that the persecu- 
tions of the Jews would make Christian converts of 
one-third of them, would starve another third, and 
would drive the remaining third to America or some 
other foreign country. It has not been learned that 
many Russian Jews have been converted, though per- 
haps some have been starved; but a million of them 
have emigrated, and this gives the United States a 
very direct and strong interest in the events which 
are transpiring in the land of the Czar. For this 


[175 ] 


immigration will go on so long as the state of affairs 
in Russia remains substantially unaltered, and it 
necessarily has a direct bearing on economic and social 
conditions in the United States. Twenty-five years 
ago Russian Jews were coming to this country at the 
rate of about a thousand per year, but recently the 
number of these immigrants has grown to seventy- 
five thousand a year. The State of New York has 
already a Jewish population of over half a million, 
and it is clear that in the future the Jewish element 
is going to constitute quite a fraction of our total 
population. 

But while for these reasons the people of the United 
States have a very real interest in what the Govern- 
ment of Russia does to render good or bad the lot of 
the five million Jews in that distant land, we are 
vastly more concerned for reasons of humanity. The 
dominant feeling with regard to recent occurrences in 
Odessa and other Russian cities is the horror of it all. 
The slaughter, through race prejudice, of literally 
thousands of peaceful, industrious, inhabitants of a 
single city is such wholesale cruelty as had not before 
been known for many decades in any country calling 
itself civilized or even semicivilized. A few years 
since there occurred the Kishineff riots, in which some 
fifty persons lost their lives, several hundreds were 
injured and two thousand families were ruined. ‘That 
outrage aroused the indignation of the world, and the 
international resentment was so strong that the Czar 
and his advisers found it necessary to go through the 
form of trying and punishing the principal offenders, 
although their murderous acts amounted to little more 


[ 176 ] 


than carrying to its logical conclusion the policy of 
oppression which the government itself had been pur- 
suing for a dozen years. But the horrors of Kishineff 
pale into insignificance in comparison with the dread- 
ful events of the last few weeks, which do indeed stag- 
ger humanity. 

It is true that these slaughters were mainly the 
work of mobs, crazed by the excitement of a revolu- 
tionary crisis, and that there is no reason to believe 
the Emperor and his counselors would have permitted 
such excesses, if they could have prevented them at the 
moment. But governments which have adopted op- 
pression as a consistent policy cannot excuse them- 
selves if a passion-blinded populace supplements sys- 
tematic cruelty by murderous assaults upon those 
whom they have been taught to regard as their racial 
enemies. 

No nation has ever more grievously oppressed a 
people whomduty called upon it to favor and protect. 
Think for a moment of the giant injustice involved 
in the whole scheme of concentrating the Jewish popu- 
lation within narrow limits and restricting their free- 
dom of employment. Industrial conditions in Russia 
are none too good at the best, but they are hard in- 
deed for the five millions of Jews of the Pale, who are 
compelled to reside within a district embracing but one 
twenty-third of the territories of the empire, and even 
there are required to congregate in the congested 
towns and cities and cannot reside in the small villages 
or in the country. What wonder that a large portion 
of the whole Jewish population is always on the verge 
of starvation and that discontent is rife among the 


curry 


whole mass? The Russian Government complains be- 
cause many Jews are socialists, but when we remember 
the cruel injustice to which they are subjected, it is 
a wonder that the whole population does not join the 
revolutionary movement. And yet when Russia needs 
soldiers to fight her battles, she calls freely upon the 
Jews, and it is pathetic to see how loyally they re- 
spond. In the late war with Japan, it is said thirty 
thousand Jews were in the regiments which went to 
the front, and many of them laid down their lives for 
a government which possesses no more sense of grati- 
tude than to try to drive to starvation or emigration 
the families of these men. 

But such wrongs cannot endure forever, since they 
are bound to drag down any government which is re- 
sponsible for them. The Russian autocracy has at 
last sunk under the weight of the odium it had rolled 
up, and at length we have the promise of a free Rus- 
slia—a constitutional and liberal government which 
will not adopt a policy of deliberate oppression toward 
any class of its people. That this promise will be 
realized will be the hope of every friend of freedom, 
and it finds considerable support in such occurrences 
as the adoption of resolutions of sympathy by the 
Zemstvo Congress in session in Moscow. So, although 
the recent massacres were the most tragic event in the 
whole history of the Jews in Russia, there is reason- 
able ground to cherish the belief that the end of 
these things is near at hand in the breakdown of the 
whole system of tyrannical oppression of the Israel- 
itish race in the land of the Great White Czar, who 
is likely to become soon merely the constitutional 


[178 ] 


sovereign of his hundred and thirty millions of people, 
and if so, there will be none more prosperous, more 
industrious, and more loyal than the five million 
Hebrews. When that time comes the Jews of Russia 
will be what the Jews of America have always been— 
good citizens, devoted to the preservation of govern- 
mental institutions which guarantee justice to all 
races and all men. 

And we here to-day, celebrating the two hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of the advent of the Jews in 
America, rejoice that, at last, even though it be 
through blood and fire, the only civilized nation in 
the world that, at the beginning of this twentieth cen- 
tury, oppressed the Jew will be compelled, by the 
very force of events, to become more tolerant, more 
merciful, more civilized toward the people, who from 
the very dawn of history, have made headway against 
oppression in all the arts and sciences. What other 
people could have suffered the outrages, the crimes, 
the persecutions of six thousand years and still sur- 
vived as have the Jews? What other people, coming 
from the Judengasse within half a century could have 
climbed so high, even to the courts of Europe, as have 
the Jews? 

America has been a happy haven for the oppressed 
Jew. And, while America has done much for him, he 
has done much for America. 


[179] 


ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT WHEELER, OF 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 


To-day a peculiar New World festival called 
Thanksgiving Day is celebrated for the two hundred 
and eighty-fifth time. Its first occurrence was at 
the hands of the Plymouth Pilgrims, a peculiar peo- 
ple zealous of good works. These Pilgrims had 
sought the New World in the instinct of liberty of 
conscience, and by this liberty they meant for them- 
selves the freedom to worship God according to their 
own conscience, and for other people who sojourned 
among them they meant that, if such people agreed 
with them, they were “to feel,” as Heman Lincoln 
said, “ at perfect liberty to say so.” These Pilgrims, 
now, were Old Testament Christians. The Jehovah 
they worshiped was endowed with the attributes both 
of justice and mercy, but they were shrewd Old Tes- 
tament Christians withal, and esteemed it wise and 
prudent to keep sharp lookout on the justice of God 
before risking too much on the mercy of God. They 
were, furthermore, loyal Old Testament Christians, 
and the Jehovah they worshiped was a jealous God 
who not only frowned upon their service to the gods 
of the worldly and frivolous, but smiled upon them 
when they smote the Amorites and the Hivites and 
the Jehusites and the Perrizzites, and drove them from 
their lands. Within their borders there was no place 
of welcome for such abominations as the Baptists and 
the Jews. 

They were a peculiar and separate people, were 
these Pilgrims and Puritans ; they had hearkened unto 


[ 180 ] 


the injunction: Go ye out from among them; be ye 
not of them. But in their separation and isolation 
they laid strong the foundations of a social and na- 
tional life, applying thereto the Old Testament law 
of right and wrong; and now their successors, even 
they who have differentiated religion from the state, 
still recognize in piety the fact, when on Thanksgiving 
Day their President and governors bid them look to 
the Giver of all gifts, that God is implicit in the state, 
and that it is righteousness, after all, which exalteth 
a nation. 

From the narrow theocratic community on Massa- 
chusetts Bay, which laid the foundations for Thanks- 
giving Day, it is a long step to the broad nation of 
many bloods and faiths, which holds nothing com- 
mon or unclean that breathes with human interest or 
carries the divine burden of human fate. And yet, 
long as is the step, that nation by right of succession 
holds in its keeping still the sacred ark of Thanks- 
giving Day, now become a national feast, and conse- 
crated to the family as a pillar of the state and to God 
as the Father of nations. They have grown and wid- 
ened their bounds together—the nation and the day 
—until now they belong alike in common possession 
to Puritan and Cavalier, to Baptist, Quaker, Catholic, 
and Jew. And therewith, in equal step, has grown 
and unfolded man’s idea of God, until the tribal and 
sectarian God of Bradford and of Joshua has become 
the God of all the peoples, and they all have become 
brethren of one another; whereby is fulfilled the far- 
reaching message of the Hebrew prophet who was 
among the herdsmen of Tekoa: “ Are ye not as the 


[ 181 ] 


children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of 
Israel? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel 
out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from 
Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? ” 

The broad national religion represented in this in- 
stitution of Thanksgiving Day unites us all of many 
bloods and many faiths in the one sacred bond of our 
national life under the flag; our separate traditions of 
the struggles, the griefs, and the triumphs of our 
fathers, of the songs they sang, of the things they 
loved, of the monuments they reared, of the faiths by 
which they lived and died—shall inspire us each after 
our sort, though none can match the birthright issu- 
ing from the tradition that is graven in the hfe and 
record of Israel. But above our separate interests and 
our separate inheritances rises majestic the great com- 
mon heritage of the nation and the nation’s faith, 
whose creed is liberty to think and speak, freedom of 
opportunity and a square deal among the sons of 
men. 


[ 182 ] 


THE INFLUENCE OF AMERICANISM 
UPON THE JEW 


Address by Rev. Dr. Jacos VoorsaNncER 


From Abraham to Solomon one thousand years; 
from Solomon to the second destruction of the Tem- 
ple another thousand years; from that event until 
date nearly two thousand years. The history of the 
Jew denationalized covers nearly twice the period of 
the rise, growth, decline, and fall of his nation. 
That is a pregnant thought, for it is not generally 
understood that the best things of Israel acknowl- 
edge a cradle not Palestinian. The country of our 
fathers hath seen much of spiritual glory; aye, we 
can never forget it, for “ out of Zion came forth the 
law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” The 
spiritual influences of our ancient home remain funda- 
mental in the development and expansion of the Jew- 
ish spirit wherever it manifests itself and whenever it 
finds opportunity ; this once admitted and recognized, 
we meet with remarkable evidence of the wonderful 
plasticity of the Jew. It is our boast that this Jew 
has contributed to the upbuilding of every country ; 
we might go further and admit that every country 
has contributed to his upbuilding. The process was 
mutual; only the Jew nationalized everywhere, ab- 
sorbing elements of national culture, could have be- 
come a factor in the processes that encompass national 
growth and development. This principle of mutual- 
ity constitutes one of the most interesting chapters in 
Jewish history. Already in Biblical times it mani- 


[ 183 ] 


fests itself. The plastic spirit of Israel, unfettered 
to any soil, makes Babylon the stage of one of the 
eras of its literature. Ezekiel, the second Isaiah, Job, 
and a number of the Psalmists, maintain the classic 
genius of the paternal tongue on foreign soil, un- 
daunted by the aspects of captivity which the Israel- 
itish colonies in the Mesopotamian Valley might pre- 
sent. But, leaving this early chapter unconsidered, 
there are later chapters that attest the remarkable 
influence of nationalism upon the Jew and his capacity 
to vindicate the genius of his race as modified by its 
environments. We have time for but one or two illus- 
trations. The story of the Jews of Alexandria is pos- 
sibly one of the most interesting of those illustrations. 
It presents the Jew completely Hellenized. If we re- 
member that Palestinian culture represents those cen- 
turies of repugnance of and opposition to Hellenism, 
that, in point of fact, the Maccabean revolt was a 
violent reaction toward a purer national life and a 
religion uninfluenced by modern thought, we may 
anticipate the rigid contrast between the Jew of Jeru- 
salem and the Jew of Alexandria. And yet this 
Egyptian Jew, this Alexandrian fallen under the 
sway of the Hellenic cult, has his own distinguished 
story—and we own it with pride. For this Hellenist, 
this Greco-Judean, becomes the medium ‘of communi- 
cation between the genius of Israel and the pagan 
world, and the Greek Hexameters of the Sibyllines, 
’ the Golden Texts. of the Seventy, the symbolism of 
Philo-Judeus and the philosophic systems of the 
Gnostics become sources of inspiration through which 
the nascent Christian faith becomes intelligible to 


[184] 


both Greek and Roman. Alexandrian Judaism is 
the mother of Paulinian Christianity, which carries to 
the furthest confines of the world the Messianic teach- 
ings of its master, albeit under aspects and conditions 
of interpretation the mother has never been able to 
sanction. But we must travel onward and move rap- 
idly, for fraught as is the subject with interesting de- 
tails, we can present but the barest outlines. As 
Alexandrian Judaism survives the decay of the Jew- 
ish nation, so is Palestinian Judaism perpetuated long 
after the same catastrophe by the transplanting of its 
schools to the old stamping ground of Israel, the 
cradle of its remote ancestry and the home of some 
of its most illustrious poets. Back to Babylon ven- 
tures the Jew and scatters over the extent of the 
classic valley, from Tadmor in the desert along the 
old routes, until he claims a home everywhere, from 
the Caspian to the Gulf of Persia, but mainly concen- 
trates in the old localities; Babylon becomes the cen- 
ter of a Jewish culture that in extent and importance 
retains its hold upon the Jew of to-day. The country 
becomes subject to various political agitations; Par- 
thian and Roman, Persian and Moslem, succeed each 
other, but the Jew becomes again the heir of the 
thousand years of empire, and while they pass away, 
he remains and writes his chapter of history. The 
revival of commerce and culture under the successors 
of Mohammed finds him prepared for his work. Do- 
mesticated, naturalized, and his speech attuned to the 
kindred languages of the Orient, he becomes a power- 
ful trader, a banker, a manufacturer, but, above all, a 
scholar. His universities appear in the valley bounded 


[ 185 ] 


by the rivers and canals of Babylonia, and the decay- 
ing temples of the Sungod look down in amazement 
upon the synagogues of Israel. The Babylonian Tal- 
mud, most monumental of legal commentaries, great- 
est testimony of the complexity as well as astuteness 
and refinement of the Jewish mind, the activities of 
the later compilers and the Gaonim, as well as the 
political achievements of the Princes of the Exile, rep- 
resent the Babylonian Jew as nationalized ; that is to 
say, as subject to the environments within which, nev- 
ertheless, the Jewish genius is fully at play. From 
Babylon to Spain is a long stretch, yet Spain is the 
successor of Babylon, and there, in Spain, he writes — 
another, if not his most glorious chapter. Dwelling 
with the Moors in Andalusia, and with the Christian 
in Aragon and Castile, the Spanish Jew is perhaps 
the most notable instance of a people domesticated, 
naturalized, and so enabled to contribute to the growth 
of its home. We are wont to look upon the spiritual 
and literary achievements of the Spanish Jews as their 
highest contribution to the modern history of Israel; 
and with every warrant for doing so, we are apt to for- 
get that the Jew—more as Spaniard than as Jew— 
contributes to the history of Spain a similarly illumi- 
nated chapter. For, in addition to his super-eminent 
scholarship, in addition to his poetic genius, kissed into 
life by the bright skies of the peninsula, the five cen- 
turies of his residence in Spain made him the backbone 
of its industries, the mover of its potencies. A vine- 
yardist in Andalusia, a banker in Sevilla and Toledo, 
a statesman in Granada, a mountaineer in the Guade- 
lajara Range, a cosmographer and navigator in Palos 


[ 186 ] 


and Cadiz, a professor at the universities, a statesman 
and politician at the courts of the Moslem caliphs and 
the Christian kings, from the time of Tarik’s inva- 
sion until the doom of unmerited exile fell upon him, 
such was the Spanish Jew, more completely nation- 
alized in Spain, than were the descendants of Romans 
or Goths in his time. But this genius of Israel that, 
stimulated within the environments of every country, 
constitutes itself a factor in every aspect of civiliza- 
tion, seems really to possess that wonderful plasticity 
that we have attributed to it, for it can produce an 
Egyptian Moses, a Canaanitish Samuel, a Babylonian 
Isaiah; again, an Egyptian Philo; again, a Babylo- 
nian Samuel; again, an Egyptian Saadiah, a Spanish 
Gabirol and a French Rashi, and in later centuries a 
Dutch Spinoza, a German Heine, an English Dis- 
raeli, and an American Benjamin. These names, pro- 
nounced offhand, are fairly representative of the im- 
portant principle we have here sought to enunciate, 
namely : that the preservation of the Jewish people, as 
such, results from the operation of mutuality in the 
sense that, while on the one hand the Jew everywhere 
contributes his power and his genius to the service of 
the people among whom he lives, on the other hand, 
that contribution is made possible by his becoming 
subject to his environments in a far greater measure 
than perhaps we have hitherto believed. It is that 
influence of environment that nationalizes the Jew 
everywhere, and nowhere in so marked a degree as in 
the United States. 

But at this point we may ask a pertinent question: j 
What do we understand by nationalism and, in a 


[187] 


special sense, by Americanism? A definition at this 
time would obviously be too technical. Nationalism is 
the expression of a homogeneity that represents na- 
tionhood in a highly developed stage. It is the spirit 
of a nation in contrast with the spirit of another na- 
tion, it is the development of the genius of a nation 
finally lodged within its geographical limitations. 
Americanism answers to these conditions and qualifica- 
tions. It is the expression of a people upon which 
the spirit of homogeneity begins to operate, a people 
that in its physical and intellectual characteristics be- 
gins to be differentiated from other people and na- 
tions; a people that has fallen under the influence of 
the climatic conditions of its own country and so 
begins to present different aspects of thought, lan- 
guage, genius, and religion. Now what can be, what 
is, the influence of this Americanism upon the Jew? 
In answering this question we must speak with some 
degree of caution; for, first, it is contended that what 
is here called Americanism is still in the making, and 
secondly, the entire Jewish community in the United 
States, of necessity, has not yet become thoroughly 
Americanized. It is impossible to draw a parallel be- 
tween this community and, say, the communities of 
Egypt or Spain. Here new conditions are created 
and new principles are operating. The main fact to 
be considered is, that while we celebrate the two hun- 
dred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the 
Jews in North America, the greatest proportion of the 
present population of the United States dates its ad- 
vent from but two decades ago. Twenty-three Jews 
arrived on the St. Catarina in 1654; during the 


[ 188 ] 


- War of Independence there were barely 3,000 Jews 
in the entire country; the principal influx previous 
to the Civil War came from the German and Polish im- 
migration of 1850. Before 1880 there were barely 
250,000 Jews in the entire United States, north and 
south; to-day there are one and a half million, of 
whom, consequently, a million and a quarter came 
within the last twenty-five years. If we recollect that 
the creation of a national, homogeneous spirit is the 
slow work of ages, we can understand why we must 
speak with some care of the influence of Americanism 
upon the Jew. And yet, notwithstanding, there are 
marvelous facts to relate. In the first place, if we ap- 
ply the principle to the early Jewish settlers and to the 
immigrants of the fifties, we can already perceive to 
what marked degree the Jew is Americanized and as 
such has contributed more than his proportionate 
share to the growth of the country. It would only 
be necessary to refer to the Jewish planters of South 
Carolina and the puissant Jewish merchants of Geor- 
gia and Louisiana, to prove how quickly the processes 
of nationalization operate on the Jew. The names 
of the Jewish soldiers and merchants of the revolu- 
tionary period, the names of the Jewish statesmen and 
jurists of the South—Moses de Lyon, Judah P. Ben- 
jamin, David Yulee, Solomon Heydenfeldt—furnish 
the evidence of the operation of the national spirit 
upon the Jew, when once he has been domesticated and 
has become as one with the people of his adoption. 
The muster rolls of the Northern armies adduce an elo- 
quent and powerful testimony to what German Jewish 
boys thought of their adopted country only a decade 


[189 ] 


after their arrival; again the muster rolls of the Con- 
federacy, along with thousands of German Jewish 
names, contain, almost without any exception, the 
names of the latest descendants of the old Spanish 
and Anglo-Jewish families, many of whom died an 
honorable death upon the battle field. It is singular 
indeed how quickly the Jew becomes domesticated 
and is inspired to offer his services to his country. 
The Jewish soldiers of both North and South, with 
the exceptions noted, were almost entirely foreigners, 
and this remarkable devotion can only be attributed 
to the lively affection Jews all over the world enter- 
tain for this country, the home of liberty and honor- 
able opportunity. The English and German Jews 
became a great power here; in commerce, in manu- 
factures, in finance, in international trade, in poli- 
tics, in science and art, they interweave their tre- 
mendous energy and industry with those of the 
people. From Maine to California, from New York to 
Texas, the German Jew in an incredibly short period 
becomes domesticated, and not only in the counting 
house, but in the schools of the country, in the halls 
of council, aye, in every form of expression that rep- 
resents national culture, civilization, and progress, he 
contributes of his best, stimulated by the operation of 
mutuality, a principle that, because it made him an 
American, enabled him to remain Jew, and so give as 
much as he received. Were sufficient time allotted me 
I would be able to produce the list of eminent men and 
women of German Jewish extraction, who, now thor- 
oughly Americanized, have become potent factors in 
the life of the American people. How then stands 


[ 190 ] 


the case with the million and more of the immigrants 
of recent date? I feel happy indeed, that, on this 
particular day of historical reminiscence, I may 
speak of them in the liveliest terms of appreciation. 
The country must have been astounded when, at the 
breaking out of the Spanish War in 1898, a regiment 
of Russian Jews at New York, and another at Phila- 
delphia, all men who had seen service in the armies 
of the Czar, promptly offered their services to Presi- 
dent McKinley of honorable and illustrious memory ; 
that, at least, was an evidence of the patriotism of 
which the Russian Jew is capable. But here other 
factors enter into the discussion. The Russian Jew 
represents at the present time the most gifted element 
in Jewry. He has carried the Jewish center of grav- 
ity with him to New York City. Three-quarters of a 
million of Jews, a population nearly as large as the en- 
tire population of Palestine in more than one of its his- 
torical periods, are in that great metropolis alone, and 
it is stupid indeed to assume or to conclude that they 
are mere soldiers of fortune, poverty-stricken wander- 
ers, whose ignorance keeps them from contact with the 
American spirit. The reverse is true. This remark- 
able population contains, in more than a proportion- 
ate degree, scholars, artists, poets, philosophers, dis- 
tinguished orators, and littératewrs, an army of choice 
spirits with whom Americanization will be but a ques- 
tion of time, when they will fully enter into the life 
of the country. In fact they have already done so. 
At the present day they furnish already a consider- 
able force in the service of the country and its people. 
Russian Jews have entered the universities; they are 


[191 ] 


among the most capable teachers in the public schools ; 
as pamphleteers, essayists, and journalists they 
scarcely have equals; and the growing popularity of 
certain classes of literature with which he is identified 
bears testimony to his influence. In commerce he 
forges ahead; the immigrant of yesterday is to-mor- 
“‘ sweater ” of a decade 
ago is to-day a manufacturer; and the tremendous 
energy of this gifted people is becoming a factor in 
the industrial life of the United States. Now, if so 
much can be accomplished in two decades, what must 
be the result, looking ahead a century? What will 
not the national spirit achieve for them? Trained in 
the schools of the country, their genius modified by 
national environments, their souls freed from the an- 
guish of decades of persecution, what will be the 
future of this new Jewry of the United States, welded 
into a homogeneous unit with the older elements from 
Germany, from England, from Spain, from France 
and the Indies? It is folly to venture upon predic- 
tions—yet there are parallels, the parallels of Egypt, 
of Babylon, of Spain, of England, to determine at 
least a glowing, eloquent hope that these Redeemed 
of the Lord, in the years to come, will render as illus- 
trious service to their country and their nation as 
their forbears did in the centuries agone under diffi- 
culties that can never present themselves in this blessed 
land of liberty! And here we may rest the case— 
content that the American Jew will give a brave ac- 
count of himself in the chronicles that will record the 
achievements of this great American nation! And 
may this Jew of the new hemisphere, may he remain 


[ 192 ] 


row’s millionaire; the poor 


loyal to the two great principles his cognomen indi- 
cates. May he be loyal American and loyal Jew, true 
to the influence and the spirit that made him an Amer- 
ican, true to the influence and the spirit that endow 
him with the historic aspects of the Jew! If he will, 
who knows but that he will parallel the eloquent page 
of the Spaniard, and that he, the American Jew, will 
brighten the record of American history with the 
noblest intellectual achievements? 


[193 ] 


LETTER FROM GOVERNOR FOLK, OF 
MISSOURI 


Dear Sir: Your letter of the 21st instant re- 
ceived. I thank you, and through you those who 
have joined in extending this invitation to me to ad- 
dress your people at Temple Shaare Emeth on 
Thanksgiving morning. I regret, however, that be- 
cause of engagements already made, it will not be 
practicable for me to meet your wish. 

In common with the whole civilized world, I have 
_ read with the deepest feeling of regret and sympathy 
the outrages to which the Jewish people in Russia 
have been subjected. Like the martyrs of old, they 
have given up their lives for their faith, and their 
going cannot but be a splendid example to their 
brethren throughout the world. 

Already a mighty movement is being fostered, look- 
ing to the relief of those who have escaped, and it is 
felt and believed throughout this State that the Rus- 
sian Government must soon take cognizance of this 
slaughter of the innocents, to the end that they may 
be sheltered under the strong arm of the law, and 
once more be permitted to become citizens in fact. 

Missouri will do her part toward bringing about 
this needed reform, and offers a home among a people 
who recognize the right of religious worship to all 
who may come to become citizens of this Common- - 
wealth, where virtue is honored and God is wor- 
shiped according to the dictates of the individual 
conscience. 

Our Jewish fellow-citizens have always been loyal 


£194] 


and public spirited, and the State of Missouri cannot 
better be promoted than by such citizens, who alone 
make the best success of the nation. I congratulate 
them upon this spirit, and trust as well that they will 
continue to be factors for good, like all their fellow- 
citizens who love their country with a true and un- 
selfish patriotism. 
JosEPH W. Fotx. 


[195] 


APPENDIX 


I 


SELECTED EDITORIAL UTTERANCES 
FROM THE NEWSPAPER PRESS 


(The celebration evoked appropriate editorial utter- 
ances in the newspapers of the country, North and 
South, East and West, several hundred of these 
having come to the notice of the Committee. With 
so many interesting and suggestive editorials to 
choose from, the task of selecting a few as typical 
was necessarily a difficult one. As, however, space 
requirements rendered it impracticable to choose 
more than a dozen of these interesting and spon- 
taneous utterances concerning American Jewish 
citizenship, it was concluded to make the selection 
with reference not merely to the character and in- 
terest of the particular editorial, but also so as 
fairly to reflect the sentiments of papers repre- 
senting varying opinions and geographical loca- 
tion. This will explain the followimg rather arbi- 
trary selection of editorials, all of which were pub- 
lished on or about Thanksgiving Day, 1905.) 


THE HEBREW IN AMERICA 


From tue Atlanta Constitution 


The coming of the Hebrew to America was even 
more of a release from oppression to full liberty than 
was that of the Pilgrim Fathers, and the condition 


[199 ] 


of the Jew in Russia to-day makes the historical 
reason for this emigration two centuries and a half 
ago appear doubly significant, invested as it is with 
such modern significance. The chapter Russia is fur- 
nishing on Jewish persecution reads as if it were ex- 
tracted from a history of the dark ages, when the 
Jew was every nation’s prey and every man’s victim. 

The Hebrew population of the United States very 
generally observed the anniversary in question, meet- 
ing in their synagogues on Thanksgiving Day to 
commemorate the arrival toward the end of 1654 of 
the first Jewish settlers on the soil of what is now the 
United States, but what was then a Dutch colony. 
Writing of the celebration, Mr. Max J. Kohler, secre- 
tary of the American Jewish Historical Society, said: 

“The approaching Thanksgiving Day will thus 
have a special significance for the million and a quar- 
ter of Jews residing in this land, who will then invoke 
God’s blessing upon this beloved country, which first 
among the nations of modern times recognized the 
Jew’s title to all the rights of man, and permitted 
him, in common with all other members of the body 
politic, to worship the Almighty Father according to 
the dictates of his own conscience.” 

One of the results of the impressive celebration in 
Carnegie Hall, New York City, Thursday, was the 
establishment of a fund for the erection of a perma- 
nent memorial in New York. 

The Jew not only found liberty in America in the 
fullest sense, but he found brotherhood among the 
composite population of the United States. And in 
return for this liberty and brotherly treatment he has 


[ 200 ] 


given the great republic one of its highest types of 
citizenship. The American Hebrew is statistically 
proven to be the most valuable kind of a citizen. He 
is among our largest property holders and taxpayers ; 
he is in the vanguard of all progressive moral and 
material movements; he is a large contributor to phi- 
lanthropy, education, and charity; he is generally 
to be found on the side of good government and civic 
purity, regardless of partisanship, and he does not 
contribute to the burden of government by furnishing 
an appreciable per cent of its criminals and paupers. 
The Jew is everywhere acknowledged to be a first-class 
American citizen, and since the foundation of our pres- 
ent national life his exemplary conduct as citizen and 
man has earned for him the respect and fellowship of 
all Americans. 

To-day, in every city of the Union, the Jewish por- 
tion of the population is a part of its civic backbone 
and moral sinew, as well as among its most responsible 
material assets. It is so in Atlanta, as every citizen of 
Atlanta knows. The Hebrew has made a great rec- 
ord in the United States, one of which all Americans 
are proud. 


THE JEWISH RACE 
From THE Boston Post 


The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of the arrival of immigrants of the 
Jewish race in this country was very appropri- 


[ 201 ] 


ately made upon the day of the National Thanks- 
giving. For here, in this republic of equal rights 
and freedom of endeavor as well as of belief, 
this people have found their most prosperous develop- 
ment. And this has come to them, not as a class or as | 
separatists in blood or in religion, but as Americans, 
members of the great commonwealth. The first Jew- 
ish immigrants came to America from Brazil, fleeing 
the intolerance of the Portuguese rule in that land. 
They bore their share in the struggle for independence 
of the colonies, but even so late as a century ago their 
number in the entire Union hardly exceeded 2,000. 
To-day the enumeration would reach more than a mil- 
lion and a half. Largely they have come, as did the 
first small colony from Brazil, to escape persecution 
in Europe; and nothing more remarkable is presented 
in the history of this nation than the adaptation of 
these people to the environment of liberty and to ex- 
pansion under the sunlight of free institutions. 

The United States now stands third among the 
countries of the world in its Jewish population. In 
Russia, where the lot of the Jews is the hardest and 
their oppression the most cruel, they number about 
5,000,000; in Austria-Hungary about 2,000,000; 
in the United States about 1,600,000. Relatively to 
the immigration of other races, they have not come in 
great numbers. In the latter half of the last century 
there was a German immigration of about 5,000,000, 
and of Irish about 3,750,000. Even the last census 
showed that more than 2,500,00 of our population 
were of German birth and nearly 1,750,000 of Irish 
birth. The population of foreign parentage, or with 


[ 202 ] 


one or both parents foreign, numbered 26,198,939, | 
and of these nearly 8,000,000 were German and 
5,000,000 Irish. In 1900 we had more people of 
Canadian birth by half a million than of Jews. Even 
the immigration from the Scandinavian countries has 
been about as great as the Jewish during the last fifty 
years. The Italians did not begin to come over in any 
large numbers till 1880, yet they are now here by 
more than a million. 

The mere numerical comparison, however, does not 
tell the whole story by any means. The Jewish immi- 
grants who come in with an average wealth of only 
fifteen dollars each, as appears from the statistics of 
the immigration bureau, have shown a notable ability 
to take care of themselves. They become self-support- 
ing with great rapidity, and prosperity follows. 
They are dependent only in the smallest degree upon 
charitable assistance outside of that which is furnished 
by the benevolent organizations of their own race. 
Their independence is a fitting development of the 
character which we feel proud to call American. And 
not only in trade and finance, but in literature, in art, 
in the learned professions, the talent possessed by these 
people makes a distinctly recognizable mark in the 
schedule of our national greatness. ‘‘ What our Jew- 
ish fellow-citizens have done to increase the material 
advancement of the United States,” said Grover 
Cleveland in his address at the New York meeting, 
“is apparent on every hand and must stand confessed. 
But the best and highest Americanism is something 
more than materialistic. Its spirit, which should make 
it imperishable and immortal, exists in its patriotic 


[ 203 ] 


aspirations and exalting traditions. On this higher 
plane of our nationality and in the atmosphere of 
ennobling sentiment, we also feel the touch of Jewish 
relationship.” 


THE JEWISH CELEBRATION 
From THE Brooklyn Eagle 


The celebration of the first settlement of the 
Jews on Manhattan Island was observed in Carnegie 
Hall, Thanksgiving Day. The purpose was to sig- 
nalize the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of that 
event. The occasion was marked by a thoughtful 
speech from Grover Cleveland, by a searching letter 
from President Roosevelt, by a notable address de- 
livered by Bishop Greer, and by addresses by members 
of the Jewish race and faith who stand in high rela- 
tions to their order. Among the latter was Judge 
Sulzberger of Philadelphia. Governor Higgins was 
also heard from in words of marked thoughtfulness 
and sympathy. The address of Mayor McClellan was 
excellent in itself and was marked by that earnest 
' manner which renders anything from him most im- 
pressive. The presiding officer was Jacob Schiff, the 
well-known financier. It is understood that a verbatim 
account of the occasion will be printed in the principal 
Jewish papers. That account could well receive large 
circulation among Gentiles as well as Jews, for the 
meeting was an historical celebration of what has come 
to be an historical event. 


[ 204 ] 


Like many historical facts, the beginning of this 
one was humble, and its enormous consequences were 
unforeseen. Jews who had been crowded out of Portu- 
gal, who were then cold-shouldered out of Brazil, and 
who in vain sought opportunity in the West Indies, 
came to New Amsterdam, whence Peter Stuyvesant 
sought to extrude them, but where asylum was given 
to them by his superiors in Holland. Their right of 
freehold, of military service, and of citizenship at last 
came, but generations were required for them to at- 
tain all of those rights and, at the first, each of them 
was to a degree restricted. They are elsewhere re- 
stricted to this day, but the places are few, and all 
bans or disqualifications are being lifted. At the 
present time the tragedy of the world is the situation 
in Russia. Much of that tragedy is due to or is 
marked by the oppression of the Jews, and much of it 
may be said to be a punishment for such oppression. 

We need not consider too closely the causes which 
render the oppression of the Jew a satire on civiliza- 
tion and the pathos of history. That the treatment 
had its text or pretext in what men call religion can 
be conceded. That such religion is becoming dis- 
counted and notably reformed is evident. The the- 
ology, the history, and the poetry of the past abound 
with chapters of persecution of the Jews because of 
religion, and, to a degree, with persecution by the 
Jews for the same reason, or in the same name. The 
disappearance of persecution, the upcome of tolera- 
tion, the recrudescence of liberality, are the excellent 
features of modern times. 

It can be said that few republics, if any, have de- 


[ 205 ] 


nied freedom of thought and freedom of worship, and 
that very few monarchies, if any, whether despotisms 
or whether constitutional forms of rule, have escaped 
periods in which persecution has not been a recourse 
or a habit. Where the people now govern, through a 
republic in fact or in form, in form as in the United 
States and in France, in fact as in Great Britain, 
Italy, Sweden, Norway, and the like, persecution of 
Jews does not now occur. In monarchies, “ broad- 
based upon the people’s will,” such persecution, if once 
practiced, has since ceased. The measure of govern- 
mental freedom is, therefore, the measure of religious 
freedom. 

It is the glory of the United States that since the 
establishment of the republic in 1776, and even before 
the promulgation of the Federal Constitution, free- 
dom of religion has absolutely prevailed in this nation. 
It did not prevail in all of the colonies, from which the 
republic was formed, but it did in most of them. It 
prevailed at an earlier period in the Middle and in the 
Southern colonies than in some of the Eastern ones. 
But it eventually prevailed in all parts of New Eng- 
land and in Maryland, which were the slowest to con- 
cede it. We should like to be able to give to New 
York, whether as a colony or as a State, the primary 
credit of the largest liberty and the broadest tolera- 
tion. That credit, however, belongs to Rhode Island, 
and is due to Roger Williams, who was crowded out 
of Massachusetts, and who in Rhode Island proclaimed 
what he called “soul liberty,” a phrase and a fact 
which entitle him to the immortality that he has won. 

The meeting in Carnegie Hall cast neither praise 


[ 206 ] 


nor blame on the past. It did not seek to account for 
it, to atone for it, or to moralize it. The meeting was 
content to note and to applaud the toleration of the 
present and the spread and dominance of that tolera- 
tion. Undertoning with sadness and with indignation 
all that was said were the references to the persecution 
of the Jews in Russia, which is now in the throes of 
revolution. Those references made every word spoken 
yesterday a testimony on behalf of toleration, of hu- 
manity, of civic equality, and of religious freedom. 
That testimony will survive the words in which it was 
expressed. The occasion will be framed in the memory 
of men and in the literature of this century as a tribute 
to toleration, to civic liberty, and to religious freedom. 
This is the value of it. This insures the celebrity of it. 
This guarantees the honor of it. This establishes the 
significance of it, and this, whether for Jew or for 
Gentile, secures the honor as well as the value, the 
indestructibility as well as the potency of it. The 
meeting was one in which it was an honor to speak 
and an honor merely as listeners to participate. None 
of those there, and none upon whom the effect of 
the occasion may come, as readers of it, will ever be 
able to escape its enlarging influence. Everyone will 
progressively become the subject of that influence. 
The occasion, even as a memory or a record, will rise 
to rebuke narrowness, to condemn proscription and to 
satirize sectarianism, wherever attempts to appeal to 
prejudice or to abridge freedom or to question the 
competency of men to do their own thinking and to 
frame, to enforce, and to vindicate self-government 
may be made. 


[ 207 ] 


There was one word which outclassed Jew or Gen- 
tile, Hebrew or Christian, as terms in the minds of 
those who spoke and of those who heard them. The 
word was American. Citizenship came to honor by 
that fact. Nationality came to recognition by that 
fact. Loyalty and law came to consciousness and to 
acclamation by that fact. The fact made the spirit 
or soul of the entire occasion. It made the occasion 
itself forever significant. And to none was it more 
significant than to the Jews assembled, and to none of 
them was it so significant as to their spiritual, their 
political, and their business magnates. The inferiority 
of the things whereon we disagree to the things 
whereon we all agree, was vividly and vitally shown 
by the entire demonstration. That demonstration was 
notable in every respect which can add distinction to 
celebration. We are glad that the Empire State was 
the scene of the event commemorated, and has been 
the theater of the extraordinary evolution of results 
from that event. The metropolis is the home of tolera- 
tion as well as of enterprise, and the metropolis never 
passed under a finer influence than that to which it 
was subjected by the significant meeting in its princi- 
pal hall of assembly, on Thursday afternoon. 


THE RISE OF THE JEWS 
From THE Denver Republican 


When, nearly a hundred years ago, Byron sang 
the song of Zion’s sorrow in his beautiful tribute to 
the tribe of the wandering foot and weary breast, all 


[ 208 ] 


Jews were under a political ban and socially ostracized 
in every country of the globe save the United States 
alone. The story of their rise in power since then is 
told by Charles M. Harvey in an interesting and in- 
structive article printed in the latest number of Les- 
lie’s Weekly, wherein he declares their progress in 
“the face of prejudices more obstructive than hostile 
statutes ” to be one of the marvels of the present age. 

Masters of money-making for a thousand years, 
the bankers and brokers of the middle ages and of the 
earlier period of modern times, they were feared by 
the ignorant and persecuted by the strong. Nearly 
every avenue of effort was barred against their en- 
trance. Lacking opportunity to employ their powers 
in other directions than money-lending, they suffered 
the world to believe that science and art, literature, 
law, statecraft, and whatever else appealed to the in- 
tellect and the nobler emotions rather than to the fear 
and avarice of man, were to them unknown and im- 
possible. 

It was reserved for our own day to witness their 
emancipation from this serfdom of bigotry and preju- 
dice. Following Goethe’s advice that he who would 
reach the infinite should venture into the finite on 
every side, their strong men have overlooked no path, 
have neglected no field, but in every direction have 
pressed forward until they occupy to-day some of the 
most commanding places in the world of literature 
and science, in finance, in commerce, and in govern- 
ment. Racial virility has made them conquerors. 
They have demonstrated their adaptability to every 
station and secured at last the recognition which their 


[ 209 ] 


talents and energies have compelled the world, to 
accord. 

Eleven million Jews inhabit the earth to-day, five 
million of whom are in Russia and two million in 
Austria-Hungary. Fifteen hundred thousand have 
made their homes in the United States, nearly one- 
half of whom are in the city of New York. They are 
coming at the rate of one hundred thousand a year, 
and in Mr. Harvey’s opinion their number in the 
United States twenty years hence will exceed that of 
any other country in the world. Oppressed in 
Austria and persecuted in Russia, they are leaving 
those countries in eager throngs, pushing toward this 
new promised land, where their wandering feet can 
find the paths of prosperity and peace. 

This afternoon in the First Baptist Church a meet- 
ing will be held to consider ways and means whereby 
aid may be extended to the afflicted and suffering men 
and women of this race in Russia. It was called by 
some of the leading clergymen of the city, addresses 
will be delivered by well-known speakers, and an op- 
portunity will be given those who may be present to 
express, by appropriate resolutions, sympathy for the 
unfortunates, and horror at the cruelty to which they 
have been subjected. 


A JEWISH. FESTIVAL 
From THE Mezico City Herald 


The Jews of the United States are about to cele- 
brate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 


[ 210 ] 


permanent settlement of men of their race and faith 
in what is now the territory of the great republic. It 
is related that, a quarter of a millennium ago, Jacob 
Barsimson, a Jew, landed at New Amsterdam (New 
York) to seek his fortune, and somewhat later twenty- 
three Jewish refugees from Brazil arrived at the same 
port, which was destined in ages to come to be the 
gateway to a land of promise for thousands of op- 
pressed Hebrews from many lands and to have itself 
a large Hebrew population. 

The Anglo-Saxon nations, with the wisdom and 
liberality which guide their public policy, have for 
long past signalized themselves by their humane and 
enlightened treatment of men of all races and religions 
seeking their shores, and in their territory the Jews 
have found opportunities afforded to them in no other 
land. In England in recent times a Jew has risen to 
the highest office under the crown, and on more than 
one occasion a Jew has figured as the civic head of the 
greatest of modern capitals. In the United States 
every avenue is open to the Jew, and in American 
finance the Jews occupy high, but not the most com- 
manding positions. 

This fact, which is really of extreme interest, 
affords the key both to the harsh, repressive measures 
taken against the Jews in some countries and the liberal 
treatment accorded them in the Anglo-Saxon nations. 
In backward countries, whose inhabitants, owing either 
to lack of education and enterprise or to natural 
apathy and indifference, are unable to compete with 
the more alert Jew on the basis of equal opportuni- 
ties, the Jews are persecuted and placed under various 


[211] 


disabilities. On the other hand, in countries whose 
people are free, energetic, and intelligent, the Jew is 
not feared, and, therefore, is not antagonized, simply 
because his Gentile neighbors are able to hold their 
own against him. ; 

In the United States, prominent as are the Jews in 
finance, they do not own the largest fortunes. They 
are a factor and an important one in the business life 
of the American metropolis, but they do not domi- 
nate it. 

And it is a noteworthy, but yet, properly con- 
sidered, a perfectly natural fact, that the Jews them- 
selves, in a liberal and tolerant environment, divest 
themselves of many of the characteristics which ren- 
der them unpopular elsewhere. For this reason Eng- 
land and the United States have the best Jews—men 
of philanthropy, public spirit, and all the other quali- 
ties which make men desirable and useful members of 
a community. 

It is hardly necessary to add, in connection with the 
forthcoming Jewish commemoration in the United 
States, that Jacob Barsimson was not the first Jew 
who landed in the New World. Indeed, one of the 
companions of Columbus, in the discovery of this con- 
tinent, Luis de Torres, was a Jew. ‘And here it may 
also be mentioned that Luis de Sanangel and Gabriel 
Sanchez, friends and patrons of Columbus, belonged 
to the class numerous in the Spain of that day, viz., 
of Jews who, outwardly conforming with the domi- 
nating worship, adhered in secret to their own tenets, 
for inquisitorial institutions can control the external 
acts of men but can never reduce to vassalage what 


[ 212] 


Byron called the “eternal spirit of the chainless 
mind.” 

Undoubtedly in Mexico, long before the year in 
which Barsimson landed in New York, there were 
Jews of the outwardly conforming type. Without 
going deeply into the erudition of the matter, we may 
remind our readers that the celebrated autos de fe in 
which the Caravajal family perished took place in 
the years 1596 and 1601. The records of these curi- 
ous cases were brought to light some years ago by 
Vicente Riva Palacio and published by him in the 
“ Libro Rojo.” 

In this enlightened age the Jewish community of 
Mexico is numerous, prosperous, and influential. Its 
members celebrate openly the feasts and fasts of their 
religion and oh! shades of the Inquisitors Don Alonso 
de Peralta y Gutierre, Don Bernardo de Quiroz, and 
Don Martos de Bohorquez, are talking of erecting a 
synagogue where they will gather for worship under 
the zgis of the religious freedom won by the wisdom 
and firmness of the immortal Juarez. 


JEWISH IDEALISM 
From THE New York Evening Post 


For the next ten days the press will teem with arti- 
cles telling of the progress of the Jews in America, 
since their arrival just two hundred and fifty years 
ago. Their achievements in science, commerce, and 
finance will be recounted. The patriotism displayed 


[ 213 ] 


by the 7,884 members of their race who served the 
Union during the Civil War will rightly be dwelt 
upon. As for the material successes of the Jews, 
merely to describe them would require volumes. 

But it is not so useful to ask what America has 
done for the Jew, as what the Jew has done for Amer- 
ica. If the Hebrews were to be judged merely by 
their ability to make money speedily, the verdict in 
their favor would be instant. But there are other 
questions to be asked. What has the Jew contributed 
to American ideals? What has he done to better the 
country spiritually? What is our debt to him in the 
higher fields of human activity, in the domain of lit- 
erature, music, and art? If these queries cannot be 
answered in his favor, we must admit that there would 
be reason to ask with alarm when the heavy Jewish 
immigration is to stop; and to view with dread the 
growth of the Hebrew population of this city and 
country. 

Let it be said at the outset that no section of our 
variegated population has ever set up a higher ideal 
of what the home ought to be than the Jews. Be it 
because there still survives in Jewish life the Scriptural 
tradition of the family as an institution in which the 
patriarch reigns supreme, or because their social isola- 
tion has caused them to cling more closely to one 
another than would otherwise be the case, in the 
average Jewish home of culture there is a reverence 
for age and a tenderness of affection far too often 
lacking where Anglo-Saxon traditions prevail. This 
is not simply the result of the league for offense and 
defense which Jews have consciously or unconsciously 


[214] 


been compelled to form—thanks to Christians. There 
is in all their relations of family life a mutual regard 
and respect, with a recognition of the claims of kin- 
ship, well worthy of imitation. And this virtue ex- 
tends to the community also. No other portion of our 
population cares so well or so liberally for its sick, 
“its aged, its dependents. And no other aids so freely 
the helpless and lowly of other sects. The lists of 
donors to the Hebrew charities of New York are singu- 
larly barren of Christian names; but so-called “ Chris- : 
tian” charities rarely appeal in vain to men of 
Hebrew faith or descent. Justice was on the side of 
Rabbi Hirschberg, of Chicago, who commented scath- 
ingly last week on the failure of the Christian Church 
and press to raise their voices in protest against the 
savage massacres of Jews in Russia. He called for a 
Garrison to rouse the whole nation to a proper indig- 
nation; but if it had been a massacre of Christian 
missionaries and traders in China, there would have 
been no need to cry out from the housetops for Jewish 
sympathy or Jewish money for the survivors. 

The thirst for knowledge which fills our city col- 
leges and Columbia’s halls with the sons of Hebrews 
who came over in the steerage, is in itself the best proof 
of Jewish ideality. The time has long since passed 
when the Hebrew money lender could be cited as the 
representative of his race. To medicine and the law 
the Jew turns with natural facility. In political life 
he is making himself more and more felt with every 
decade. Not always are his representatives such as to 
confer honor on him and his people; but the Christian 
Americans, who have contributed their Platts, Quays, 


[215 ] 


and Odells to our roll of statesmen, should be the last 
to throw a stone. We prefer to dwell on the touching 
faith with which the East Side Jews followed Mr. 
Jerome wherever he appeared, in his campaign two 
years ago, seeking to touch his garments and hear his 
voice, even when they could not understand his words. 
Invaluable service our best Jews have performed in 
every campaign for municipal or national reforms. 
What would our Reform and City Clubs, our Citi- 
zens Union, have been without them and their gener- 
ous aid? From what uplifting movement have they 
withheld their support? Certainly not from our social 
settlements, our civic federations, nor our efforts to 
establish peace and concord among nations. No man 
in America has stood for a higher moral standard 
than Felix Adler, or voiced a purer idealism. No one 
has spoken out more stoutly against war, the sum of 
all villainies, than Oscar Straus. Yet to these names 
could be added a host of others, in and out of the 
orthodox church; and to such America owes a great 
debt. 

** But for the Jews,” said a high Saxon official, in 
music-loving Germany, a few years ago, “ we should 
have to close the Dresden Opera House, and the same 
is true at Frankfurt.” Of what the Jews have done 
for American music, it is sufficient to say that our ex- 
traordinary musical development is due in very large 
part to Jewish support. It is not merely that the race 
has given us a Damrosch, a Joseffy, and a host of 
minor musicians of talent; from the very beginnings 
of orchestra and opera the appeal to the Jewish 
pocket and Jewish sympathy has never been in vain. 


[ 216] 


If music is thought of as a necessity by any of our 
people, it is by the Hebrews. 

But best of all has been the fortitude and toon: 
mindedness with which they have borne persecutions 
and intolerance. ‘‘ Why seek another Zion? America 
is the promised land for all Hebrews,” said, in effect, 
_ the American Hebrew a few years ago. Yet with all 
its religious tolerance, with all its civil and political 
liberty, the United States has witnessed, and still wit- 
nesses, a social antipathy to the Jews, surpassed only 
in certain sections by the efforts to condemn the negro 
to perpetual inferiority. Through it all the Jews 
have borne themselves with exemplary patience and 
dignity, often with what is misnamed a “ Christian ” 
nobility. In this their ideality, as well as their re- 
ligion, has stood them in good stead. It has been as 
if with Ruskin they trusted in the “ nobleness of hu- 
man nature, in the majesty of its faculties, the full- 
ness of its mercy,” for their eventual justification, and 
the final disappearance of that blind, unreasoning 
prejudice from which they have suffered for centuries, 
and with which they may yet have to reckon long. 


THE JEWISH THANKSGIVING 
From tHe New York Globe 


The Thanksgiving Day celebration in honor of the 
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the arrival 
of Jacob Barsimson, the first Jewish immigrant to 
America of record, is of course to be devoted chiefly 


[217] 


to recitals of Jewish progress. Yet the festival, 
although nominally by, for, and of the children of the 
dispersion, is not without compliment to the Gentiles— 
to the English, Scotch, Irish, Germans, Swedes, 
Italians, negroes, even, perhaps, Indians, whose 
mingled force makes America. 'The implication of 
every preliminary notice—indeed, the reason for asso- 
ciating the celebration with a day specially set apart 
for general thanksgiving—is that this country is the 
best of all abiding places. The Jews have tried them 
all, and ought to know. ; 
The facts about American Jews that preparation 
for the celebration has brought to the front are not 
only interesting in themselves, but their circulation is 
calculated materially to reduce the old prejudice to 
which the Atlantic has not altogether been a bar. The 
statistics regarding the million and a half Jews 
throughout the United States and seven hundred 
and fifty thousand in this city alone; the very con- 
siderable share that they have had in the economic 
upbuilding of the country; their strong represen- 
tation in the professional as well as the business 
world; their sympathy for and support of liberal 
causes, born out of the persecution they have en- 
dured from other races; the indubitable evidence that, 
at bottom, they are very much like the rest of us, 
and that the Jew of the comic papers and the anti- 
Semite, like the Irishman of the stage and the A. P. 
A., is not typical of the race—all of these things are 
working toward a more enlightened public opinion. 
Yet we cannot lay claim to the discovery of new prin- 
ciples. Familiar is Jefferson’s letter on the persecu- 


[ 218 ] 


tion of the Jews, wherein, after noting our funda- 
mental laws in behalf of freedom, it is said: ‘* But 
more remains to be done, for, although we are free 
by the law, we are not so in practice. Public opinion 
erects itself into an Inquisition, and exercises its office 
with as much fanaticism as fans the flames of an auto 
da fé.” Weare still working away at an uncompleted 
task. 
_ One of the signs of progress is that the Jew of to- 
day, both by himself and by his critics, is interpreted 
far more rationally than were his forbears. His pecu- 
liarities are regarded more as results of external than 
of internal causes. The tree that fails to grow per- 
pendicularly does so because of pressure. For ex- 
ample, the Jew has been accused of lack of patriotism, 
yet it is difficult to resist the force of the following 
argument made by an Englishman many years ago: 
“They (the Jews) are precisely what any sect, 
what any class of men, treated as they have been 
treated, would have been. If all the red-haired peo- 
ple in Europe had, during centuries, been outraged 
and oppressed, banished from this place, imprisoned 
in that, deprived of their money, deprived of their 
teeth, convicted of the most improbable crimes on the 
feeblest evidence, dragged at horses’ tails, hanged, 
tortured, burned alive—if, when manners became 
milder, they had still been subject to debasing re- 
strictions and exposed to vulgar insults, locked up in 
particular streets in some countries, pelted and ducked 
by the rabble in others, excluded everywhere from 
magistracies and honors, what would be the patriotism 
of gentlemen with red hair? ” 


[ 219] 


The greatest benefit America has conferred on the 
Jew is not the opportunity to amass money, but to 
grow into erect manhood. For two thousand years 
he never had the chance. If he has failed in some 
respects to measure up to the complete opportunity, it 
proves nothing except that it is impossible to set aside 
at will deep-seated inherited tendencies. But the 
remedial influences are steadily at work. Prejudice 
is disappearing, and step by step with its going, go 
the excuses for prejudice. Jew and Gentile are both 
escaping from a vicious circle—one from self-imposed 
isolation and the other from imposing the conditions 
that compel isolation. It is not impossible that when 
the five-hundredth anniversary of Jacob Barsimson’s 
arrival rolls around, the distinction of Jew and Gentile 
will have been forgotten. Israel has preserved her 
identity despite servitude and persecution ; will she be 
able to continue separate in the presence of liberty 
and equality? As Leroy Beaulieu puts it: “ Israel 
runs the risk of being the victim of the Jew’s enfran- 
chisement and of perishing in his victory.” 


THE JEW IN AMERICAN LIFE 


From tHE New York Journal of Commerce and 
Commercial Bulletin 


The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
admission of Jews to trade in and with the colony of 
the New Netherlands is being made the occasion of a 
notable celebration. 'The whole record of Jewish set- 


[ 220 ] 


tlement in this country is one which redounds no less 
to the credit of the Jews themselves than to that of 
the people who freely gave them that equality of op- 
portunity which they were long denied throughout 
most of the world calling itself Christian. It is a trite 
saying that every country has the kind of Jew it de- 
serves, but it is one, none the less, full of suggestion. 
For, while the plastic character of the Jew can adapt 
itself to almost any environment, and the indomitable 
energy of the Jew can successfully assert itself under 
the least favorable conditions, it is in the air of free- 
dom that the many-sided capacity of the Jew is seen 
in its highest development. In the beginnings of the 
foreign commerce of the country the Jews bore a dis- 
tinguished part. In the Dutch West India Company 
they were large stockholders; while it was still New 
Amsterdam they were among the chief exporters and 
importers of this city; when Newport was a mart of 
trade they ranked as its foremost merchants; they 
were trading on the Delaware as early as 1655, and 
in the eighteenth century Jewish names stood high in 
the mercantile community of Philadelphia. With 
connections extending throughout the whole civilized 
world and able to command the facilities of credit on 
every exchange in Europe, the American Jew had, 
from the first, a large conception of trade and finance. 
His breadth of view, his foresight, and his enterprise 
were powerful factors in securing for the young re- 
public the place it early took in international com- 
merce. The finances of the colonial cause in the revo- 
lution were materially helped by Jewish assistance, 
as were those of the colony of New York a century 


[ 221 ] 


before. Public spirit was ever a characteristic of the 
Jew when he was permitted to demonstrate it, and the 
little band of Jewish settlers in New York at the end 
of the eighteenth century were identified with every 
enterprise, educational or philanthropic, that ap- 
pealed to the sentiment of civic pride. 

All through the history of this city the Jews have 
been foremost in good works. At the very beginning 
of the Jewish settlement in New York the condition 
was imposed that their poor should not become a pub- 
lic charge. This was faithfully observed by those 
who accepted it, as well as by their successors who were 
probably unaware of its existence. It has been the 
special distinction of the Jew in this country that, 
while contributing liberally to charitable and benevo- 
lent objects favored by his fellow-citizens of different 
race and faith, he asks from them nothing for the 
objects which appeal primarily to his own. Hospitals 
supported by Jewish contributions make no discrimi- 
nation in regard to the patients they admit; schools 
and libraries maintained by Jewish beneficence are 
open to all who can derive any benefit from them. 
The acceptance of the responsibilities of citizenship 
by the Jews coming to these shores has been as prompt 
and earnest as the efforts to fit the newcomers for the 
discharge of the duties of freemen have been intelli- 
gent and unremitting. The Americanization of the 
Jewish immigrant is prosecuted with a degree of as- 
siduity and thoroughness which commands admira- 
tion, and which forms a striking testimony to the gen- 
erosity and patriotism of those who have already 
enjoyed the boon of our republican liberty. It would. 


[ 222 ] 


be strange if the defects in character and conduct, 
generated by long centuries of grinding oppression 
in other lands, did not subsist after the Jew had es- 
caped from bondage. But, unpromising as much of 
the raw material of recent Jewish immigration does 
appear, there is nothing more marvelous in all the 
history of human emancipation than the change made 
in a single generation, even where these people are 
herded together by the thousand in the tenements of 
this and other American cities. However bent and 
twisted under cruel persecution, persistent robbery, 
and bigoted denial of the primary rights of a human 
being, the Jewish character still retains enough of its 
native force and resiliency to leave no cause to de- 
spair of its symmetrical development under better con- 
ditions. 

It would not be too much to claim that the Jews 
have enriched American life by their devotion to high 
ideals, either in the world of morals or of art. Gener- 
ous patrons of all the arts that refine life they un- 
questionably are, and without them the standard of 
musical taste, in New York at least, would be far less 
high than it has become in the memory of this genera- 
tion. With the acquisition of means they have always 
striven to surround themselves with beautiful objects, 
and their standard of physical comfort is uniformly 
high. But they have eagerly adopted the American 
measure of success in life—the possession of money— 
and in their methods of getting it have certainly been 
no more scrupulous than their neighbors. In the 
strength of their family ties they have upheld the. 
best traditions of the earlier days of the republic, and 

[ 223 ] 


have added to the cohesion of the household something 
of their own. On American flightiness they have 
operated as a distinct corrective by their brilliant 
demonstration of how close is the association between 
business success and patient continuity of effort. 
Singleness of purpose is one of the best marked char- 
acteristics of the Jew, and less self-denying men who 
complain of the closeness of his competition would do 
well to give due consideration to what is after all the 
quality that makes him strong. The American Jew 
is already a type clearly distinguishable from that of 
any of his European brethren, and, as his evolution 
proceeds, he cannot fail to become further modified 
by his environment. Nor can the characteristic quali- 
ties of such a race—their strength under adversity, 
their tireless industry, and their ceaseless struggle to 
advance—fail to react on and modify in its turn the 
composite nation of which it is one of the most potent 
elements. 


THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
From tHE New York Times 


‘A merchant in the City of New York may any day 
buy and sell commodities almost simultaneously in his 
own store, in Para, in Manchester or Liverpool, in 
Odessa, and in Canton and Tokio. He will find that 
the merchants of these cities do business very much 
as he does business; they will understand his cabled 
advices and act on them intelligently, just as he would 


[ 224 J 


act on theirs. The modern commercial idea appears 
to be fluid and assimilative—it has overspread the 
world. Commercially the nations have become one in 
thought and purpose. They understand each other. 
Why should modern political ideas be less fluid than 
commercial ideas? Manifestly the political idea does 
not so readily overspread the world, for to-day while 
the Jews of the United States are celebrating an an- 
niversary which rounds out for them two hundred and 
fifty years of entire freedom and equality before the 
law, the Jews of Russia, always persecuted, always op- 
pressed, never privileged beyond the narrowest limits, 
are being savagely done to death by mobs with which 
the police and the authorities are almost openly in 
sympathy. Russia has more Jews than any other 
nation, and beyond any other nation she has treated 
them with inhuman disregard of man’s natural right 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this 
country the Government has treated the Jew as it has 
treated everybody else, imposing no disabilities, restric- 
tions, or abridgments of privilege. The contrast be- 
tween the treatment and the condition of the Jew in 
Russia and the Jew in America is as striking as it is 
instructive. 

That our treatment of the Jew has been right and 
wise and sound, not merely from the Jew’s point of 
view, but from the point of view of the Government 
and the nation, is so abundantly attested that none 
would be so foolish as to dispute it. He has paid for 
the privileges he enjoys and for the respect in which 
he is held by contributing his full share to the pros- 
perity and the greatness of the nation. In the pro- 


[ 225 ] 


fessions, in the trades, in manufactures, in finance, in 
politics, in public life, on the bench, in both branches 
of Congress, and in State legislatures, he has held 
his place and done his work like other Americans. If 
we had been so narrow and bigoted and foolish as to 
decree that no Jew should hold public office, engage in 
any save certain specified trades, or have his home out- 
side of designated pales, we should have deprived our- 
selves of that share of the national wealth which he has 
had the privilege and made it his duty to create, and 
of his contribution to the country’s welfare. Russia 
has so deprived herself, and of that and other follies 
she is now reaping the consequences. 

Our most notable contributions to the political ideas 
and practices of the world, we suppose, are the use of 
straightforward methods and the application of the 
** golden rule” in diplomacy, a policy of which our 
neutrality laws were an early fruit, and our granting 
to every citizen freedom of religion and perfect 
equality before the law. As we have never known 
any other practice or policy, the converse proposition 
is to the American mind well-nigh unthinkable. Ma- 
caulay pointed out seventy-five years ago that the ex- 
clusion of Jews from the House of Commons was alto- 
gether illogical, and must be held absurd so long as 
Jews were allowed to carry on business and accumulate 
wealth, for, as everybody knew, wealth was power. 
‘** A congress of sovereigns,” he said, “ may be forced 
to summon the Jews to their assistance. The scrawl 
of a Jew on the back of a piece of paper may be worth 
more than the royal word of three kings or the na- 
tional faith of three new American republics.” When 


[ 226 J 


you once begin to abridge the privileges of race, there 
is no stopping place short of absolute exclusion from 
the country, and that even in 1830 no Englishman 
was prepared to advocate. The fathers of this re- 
public and those who went before the fathers, seem 
to have had what Russia has plainly lacked, the 
capacity of profiting by the experience of others. Mo- 
hammed, thirteen hundred years ago, discovered very 
early in his career as a “ divinely appointed ”’ prophet 
that his design to include all the Jews of Arabia in 
the bond of his new faith was futile, because the re- 
ligion of the Jew was by its very nature incapable of 
coalescing with any other religion. But he never 
found out that other truth, that the use of force 
against the patient and enduring Jewish race is a 
waste of power. MRussia’s lesson has been costly 
enough, but she does not yet, or at least her people do 
not, understand the sheer futility of oppression. The 
Americans seem to have known all about it from the 
beginning. 

It was not pure altruism, it was not idealism, it was 
not alone sincere faith in the doctrine of equality that 
made the fathers resolve that there should be no dis- 
tinction before the law between Protestant and Catho- 
lic, Jew and Gentile, or between native and foreigner 
so soon as the foreigner had declared his intention to 
become an American citizen. This policy has made 
Americans of the whole body of the population, for 
it is as plain as noonday that the quality of patriot- 
ism springs from a sense of being well governed. The 
Jews of America to-day celebrate their anniversary. 
But the country itself has profound cause of satisfac- 


[ 227 ] 


tion in the consciousness that it has made no mistake 
in its policy of permitting no distinction to be set up 
for reasons of race and blood. 


THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
From tHE Philadelphia Record 


There is evidence that the celebration of the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first landing 
of Jews in America, Thanksgiving week, and espe- 
cially on Thanksgiving Day, will be the most notable 
feature of this year’s holiday. For the first two hun- 
dred years after the arrival at New Amsterdam of a 
harried remnant of twenty-three refugees, expelled 
in 1655 by the Portuguese from Brazil, the immigra- 
tion of Jews to the United States was very meager. 
It has only been in the last fifty years that the pro- 
portion of arriving Jews has become a really formida- 
ble movement. 

From the beginning, however, the Jews have been 
good and patriotic citizens. They had their repre- 
sentatives in the ranks of the Revolutionary Army 
and they have furnished more than their proportionate 
quota to the armies of the Union in every war in which 
the country has been engaged. They have come to us 
from all parts of the civilized world, but their loyalty 
to the flag has never been questioned. They have ad- 
vanced with the advance of the country, and have 
attained eminence in all the walks of life, political, 
professional, commercial, and industrial. ‘There are 


[ 228 ] 


few positions in our public service to which they have 
not attained and none to which they may not reason- 
ably aspire. 

The effect of our liberal institutions upon the Jew- 
ish race has been undoubtedly beneficent. Liberty has 
done for them what the hard repression and persecu- 
tion of other nations has failed to accomplish. They 
are in the undoubted process of an unreserved assimila- 
tion into the citizenship of the country. They have 
conquered to a great extent their own prejudices and 
ours. 

The celebration of their two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary Thanksgiving week will give unusual in- 
terest to the national holiday. 


THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
From THE Washington Star 


In 1655 the bark St. Catarina entered New York 
harbor bearing a little company of Jewish colonists, 
seeking religious and political liberty in the New 
World. To-day has been set apart for the celebration 
of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
event, which is of significance in the history of the 
United States, and of vital consequence in the records 
of the Jewish people of all lands. 

There are now fully 1,200,000 Jews in the United 
States, scattered through all sections, engaged in all 
lines of business, prospering and contributing to the 
wealth and advancement of the nation in all directions. 


[ 229 J 


They are highly esteemed citizens, law-abiding, pro- 
gressive, intelligent. ‘They have earned the respect 
of all classes and the members of all religions. They 
have found here a broad tolerance for their views and 
ceremonies and they have given abundant evidence of 
their appreciation of this spirit, which lies at the bot- 
tom of the true Americanism. 

The Jews in America have participated in all the 
national movements which have gone to the upbuild- 
ing of the republic, its maintenance, and its strength- 
ening. They have been soldiers when the call came. | 
In the Revolution they fought with colonists of dif- 
ferent faiths, striving patriotically, and freely sac- 
rificing their lives to the end that here in the West 
might come into being a nation of true liberty of 
thought and action. They participated in the War 
for the Preservation of the Union. They have always 
responded to the summons for help. In times of great 
calamity they have given generously of their wealth 
for the succoring of the afflicted. In their own lines 
they have built up great charitable works. They have 
_ eagerly availed themselves of the public-school facili- 
ties and have striven faithfully to fit themselves for 
citizenship. 

Since this first incoming of the Jews there has been 
a steadily increasing stream from all parts of the 
world. The persecuted of European countries have 
fled hither, certain to find at least an opportunity to 
worship according to the ancient faith of their 
fathers, assured of an equal opportunity before the 
law. Even now the hearts of tens of thousands of 
afflicted Jews in Russia are yearning for the chance 


[ 230 ] 


to come to the United States, from which is flowing 
a golden stream of alms for their relief in the hour 
of their great distress. 

These good citizens of to-day and the past have 
greatly contributed to the strength of the republic, 
and in this day of celebration there should be a eae 
appreciation of this fact. 


FROM REV. DR. LYMAN ABBOTT 
Epiror or The Outlook 


In my judgment, the American people owe more 
to the ancient Hebrews than to any other ancient 
people. More than to either the Greeks or the 
Romans, because to the Hebrews we owe our ethical 
and spiritual ideas; from them have come to us: 

Our conception of one God, out of which has grown 
our belief in the unity of the world, both of matter 
and of mind. 

Our belief that He is a righteous God and demands 
righteousness of His children and demands nothing 
else; out of which has grown our belief that religion 
has to do with this present life and is not merely a 
preparation for another life. 

Our belief that God made man in His own image; 
out of which has grown the modern faith in the 
brotherhood of man, although that faith was not enter- 
tained by the ancient Hebrews and probably could not 
have been entertained by them in the then state of 
spiritual development. 


[ 231 ] 


Our belief that God has made the world subservient 
to man, to be His servant, not His master—a belief 
which has put an end to all deification of nature and 
is the germ of faith out of which all scientific develop- 
ment has issued. 

Our belief in the sovereignty of God, which, trans- 
lated in the terms of human experience, means the 
sovereignty of conscience—a faith which is absolutely 
inconsistent with all forms of despotism, and is the 
parent of all permanent free institutions. _ 

I hope the time will come when the laws and litera- 
ture of the ancient Hebrews will be studied in all of 
our schools as now are studied the laws and literature 
of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and when it will 
be universally recognized that no man ignorant of the 
laws and literature of the ancient Hebrews is a well- 
educated man. 


[ 232] 


II 
CORRESPONDENCE 


ENGLAND TO AMERICA 


Letter from Israel Abrahams, Esq., President of the 
Jewish Historical Society of England 


CamprincE, October 17, 1905. 
Max J. Kouter, Ese., Honorary Secretary. 


Dear Siz: On behalf of the Jewish Historical 
Society of England, I write to offer to your com- 
mittee our very cordial congratulations on your two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration. Mar- 
velous, indeed, has been the growth of the American 
Jewish community in numbers and material prosper- 
ity. But more remarkable still has been its consistent 
advance in all those noble enterprises which the world 
has the right to expect from Jews. Young as com- 
pared with the ancient history of the Jewish people, 
your community takes the lead of older bodies in 
Jewish thought and philanthropy—championing the 
cause of the persecuted abroad, promoting all good 
causes at home. 

On December 3d and 4th we, too, are celebrating 
a two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. The White- 
hall Conference may not have led to precise legal re- 
sults of much moment, but it was a unique testimony 
to the change which was coming over the world. 
Oliver Cromwell and Manasseh ben Israel—Puritan 
and Jew—then stood side by side as immortal cham- 


[ 233 ] 


pions of toleration and justice. Most of us in Eng- 
land are content and proud to date from that sig- 
nificant incident the restoration of the Anglo-Jewish 
community after the expulsion in 1290. To us, as 
to you, the year 1655 is a great and memorable year, 
and by a happy coincidence we are associated with 
you in the celebration of events honorable alike to 
the Christianity and to the Judaism of the seven- 
teenth century. 

More recent events have, except in England and 
America, been less in harmony with the promise of 
the seventeenth and with the fulfillment of the end 
of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth 
centuries. The Jews of many lands have to fight over 
again some part of the old battle for justice. But 
is it nothing that we do occupy, as Jews, the position 
of protagonists in so great a cause? ‘This struggle 
for the right—enforced upon us, yet willingly en- 
dured—is an honor, not a detriment. It keeps us 
virile; it makes us earnest; it prevents us from sink- 
ing into that security which is mortals’ chiefest enemy. 
We justify ourselves by bearing ourselves as men in 
this fight for justice. 

To you, as to us, the fight appeals with peculiar 
fascination. It marks out for us a duty, but it re- 
sponds to an even higher instinct. We, as you, know 
what it means to be free citizens of a free state. 
Noblesse oblige. Our pride in what we possess makes 
us eager to give to others a share. We are clearly 
marked out as the missionaries of freedom. To you, 
as to us, is committed the cause of Judaism. We 
rejoice to see you striding even beyond us in that 

[ 234 ] 


unselfish impulse toward freeing others which is the 
crown of freedom personally enjoyed. In all this 
effort you will find us, I hope and believe, ready to 
second you. Whether it be in those more domestic 
matters which concern the local life of each’ Jewish 
community ; whether it be the encouragement of Jew- 
ish learning, the maintenance of our common Jewish 
religion, and the revival of a true confidence in its 
ideals and practical love for its discipline; whether 
it be those wider schemes for the solace of the down- 
trodden and the enfranchisement of the oppressed, in 
all these things America will find England ready to 
join hands. 

To tell you this was unnecessary, but to do it is 
a luxury not to be lost. It is the writer’s last official 
act as president of the Jewish Historical Society of 
England. May these inadequate lines convey to you 
our good wishes. May you go from strength to 
strength; may the glory of your coming time excel 
even the glory of your past. Your celebration is, 
after all, an English celebration. Two hundred and 
fifty years ago America and England were one, na- 
tionally and politically. To-day they are one again 
in a union of hearts. We rejoice with you now in 
your joy, we shall be ready to work with you here- 
after in all that must concern us both as sharers of 
the olden English polity, as joint inheritors of the 
still older and even more inspiring Jewish tradition. 

Yours very truly, 
IsraEL ABRAHAMS. 


[ 235 ] 


AMERICA TO ENGLAND 


The Executive Committee on the American Two 
Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration 
addressed the following letter to the Jewish 
Historical Society of England on the Two Hun- 
dred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Whitehall 
Conference : 


November 22, 1905. 


Pror. Dr. H. Gortancz, President of the Jewish 
Historical Society of England, London, Eng- 
land: 


Dear Sir: At the last meeting of our Executive 
Committee our secretary presented the most cordial 
letter of congratulation forwarded on your behalf by 
Mr. Israel Abrahams as your presiding officer, upon 
our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and it was 
unanimously resolved that this letter should form 
part of our “ Anniversary Proceedings.” We were 
deputed to thank your society most warmly for its 
hearty greetings, and to extend to.you our sincere 
congratulations, in return, upon the celebration 
which you will hold on December 3d and 4th, of the 
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the White- 
hall Conference. In discharging this pleasurable 
duty, we beg leave to add that your kind message 
was all the more welcome, because we in America have 
long since learned to admire the distinguished spokes- 
man who phrased your felicitous greetings for you, 
the author of “ Jewish Life in the Middle Ages,” 
which has long been a classic in our midst. 


[ 236 ] 


We are proud to learn that you are willing to 
claim our celebration as, “ after all, an English cele- 
bration.” While both you and we must turn to Hol- 
land, the “ Holy Land of Modern Europe,” in the 
course of our respective celebrations, to trace the 
impetus from which arose the events which we are 
celebrating, we, as well as you, cannot fail to appre- 
ciate that it was the dearly cherished “ British Con- 
stitution ” and the beloved “ English Common Law,” 
which we still share with you, and their spirit, that 
made possible that Jewish development in our respec- 
tive countries which we both to-day love to empha- 
size, and which enabled us both to outpace our Dutch 
coreligionists in strength and success, intellectual 
and material. You, like ourselves, have preferred to 
select, as the particular occasion for to-day’s cele- 
bration, not the stray, isolated, possibly accidental 
first arrival of a Jewish settler, but the formal, offi- 
cial, grant or declaration which assured to the Jewish 
settler equality before the law. These resulted, with 
you as with us, in the establishment of Jewish citizen- 
ship in our respective lands, and advanced us im- 
measurably over and above the status of “ Schutz- 
juden,”’ whose rights were dependent upon the mere 
whim and caprice of each successive ruler. 

We rejoice that you have so happily chosen as 
the occasion of your celebration the convening of 
the Whitehall Conference, not merely because of its 
happy illustration of the fact you point out, that 
‘it was unique testimony to the change which was 
coming over the world,” “ Oliver Cromwell and Ma- 
nasseh ben Israel—Puritan and Jew—then stood side 


[ 237 J 


by side as immortal champions of toleration and jus- 
tice *—names which we in America also hold in hon- 
ored memory—but also for the narrower reason that 
we, as well as you, found our rights builded on ada- 
mantine rock, and not on mere sand, when English 
judges solemnly declared at Whitehall that ‘there was 
no law which forbade the Jews’ return into England.” 
Lawyers may even to-day be inclined to question the 
correctness of this exposition of the English common 
law as transmitted from the “ Dark Ages,” but Mr. 
Abrahams has given us a conclusive justification and 
explanation of the holding, in saying that it was 
‘testimony to the change which was coming over the 
world,” a repudiation of Middle-Age bigotry and 
hateful, unreasonable discrimination. The full por- 
tent of the declaration may not have been recognized 
at the time, and Manasseh ben Israel may have gone 
to his grave, heartbroken at his failure to secure an 
affirmative grant, which even he was quite ready to 
accept with expressed limitations and restrictions, but 
he “ builded better than he knew,” and could safely 
leave the matter to an all-wise Providence! Starting 
with the declaration that the laws did not forbid 
Jewish settlement on English soil, neither at home 
nor abroad, Jewish disabilities disappeared one after 
the other, sometimes quicker and with less effort on 
our newer soil than at home. But you secured for us, 
almost immediately after the readmission, without 
any new legislative fiat, the holding which we as well 
as you profited by, that Jews were competent wit- 
nesses, entitled to equal credit with the non-Jew, and, 
as a result, the whole fabric of the “ Oath More Ju- 
[ 238 ]} 


daico ” (the discriminative Jewish oath) disappeared 
on both sides of the Atlantic, and your Council for 
the Plantations solemnly decreed, in 1672, in the case 
of a New York resident, Rabba Couty, that Jewish 
freemen on British soil were not “ aliens” within the 
meaning of your Navigation Laws, and your For- 
eign Office solemnly asserted in 1676, in the case of 
some Jews from Surinam, that British Jews settled in 
the colonies are British subjects, entitled to British 
protection against attempts of a foreign government 
to detain them involuntarily. But this is no place to 
elaborate upon incidents we commemorate in common, 
some of which one of your past-presidents has set 
forth so happily in his paper on “‘ American Elements 
in the Resettlement,” and which we of the American 
Jewish Historical Society also love to descant upon. 
Let it suffice to say that we dearly cherish, not merely 
the Jewish traditions and ties which we have in com- 
mon, but also those currents and streams of a common 
development which we in America love to give ex- 
pression to when we still call England “‘ Our Mother 
Country,” and which make our two nations allies in 
seeking the maintenance of international peace and 
universal good will. 

And it is particularly gratifying for us to feel that 
we Jews, scattered among all the nations of the world, 
but cherishing our common ties and traditions while 
at the same time being loyal patriots, have been in 
the past, and may confidently hope for the future 
to be, most potent factors in bringing about universal 
‘peace upon earth and good will among men,” so 
that, in the happy language of the author of the 

[ 239 ] 


“ Spectator,” writing already in 1712, Jews “ are in- 
deed so disseminated through all of the trading parts 
of the world that they have become the instruments 
by which the most distant nations converse with one 
another, and by which mankind are knit together in 
a general correspondence. They are like the pegs 
and nails in a great building, which, though they are 
but little valued in themselves, are absolutely neces- 
sary to keep the whole frame together.” 

Accept, then, on our behalf our most heartfelt good 
wishes on your celebration, and congratulations upon 
the marvelous achievements of your two-hundred-and- 
fifty year history! When we consider only a few 
of the many brilliant stars whose names illumine your 
history, we cannot but wonder at the marvelously 
high degree in which genius has flourished in your 
midst, compared with the small Jewish population 
from which it has developed. Permit us, then, to re- 
peat your own happily phrased good wishes, drawn 
from our common inheritance: ‘‘ May you go from 
strength to strength; may the glory of your coming 
time excel even the glory of your past!” And 
though both your celebration and ours are, most un- 
happily, tinged with an unanticipated hue by the 
terrible sufferings that have suddenly been inflicted 
upon our brethren in Russia, which we are seeking, 
as far as may be, to alleviate in common, yet these 
celebrations enable us to rejoice all the more by con- 
trast, that our “ lines have fallen in pleasant places,” 
and to express from the bottom of our hearts our 
gratitude to our respective countries for granting us 
absolute equality before the law; and we may have 

[ 240 ] 


the further consciousness, in proudly chronicling our 
past, that we may thereby afford a much-needed ob- 
ject-lesson to countries less imbued with the modern 
spirit, of the appreciation of our respective fellow- 
citizens and leaders of the admirable consequences 
that have flowed from the granting of the great char- 
ters of liberty you and we are now commemorating. 
We are, very truly yours, 
Jacos H. Scuirr, Chairman. 
Max J. Koutrr, Honorary Secretary. 


[ 241 J 


Ill 


(From a pamphlet entitled “ Notes Relating to the 
Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth 
Anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews in the 
United States,” distributed by the Executive 
Committee some weeks before the celebration.) 


INTRODUCTION 


Two hundred and fifty years having elapsed since 
the first settlement of the Jews in the United States, 
by common accord of those interested in the Jewish 
people, it has been deemed fitting to celebrate and 
commemorate this important anniversary. 

At a meeting held in the vestry rooms of Shearith 
Israel Congregation, New York, on April 9, 1905, 
which was largely attended, an Executive Committee 
was appointed to take charge of the celebration, with 
power to appoint a General Committee to codperate 
Such a committee has been appointed, with repre- 
sentatives in every State and Territory, and in most 
of the important cities of the Union. 

It is an essential feature of the programme adopted 
by the Executive Committee that every Jewish con- 
gregation in the United States is to be requested to 
hold appropriate services on the Saturday (Novem- 
ber 25th) preceding the National Thanksgiving Day, 
1905, and that every Jewish Sabbath school shall be 
urged to hold similar services on the Sunday (Novem- 
ber 26th) preceding Thanksgiving Day, to the end 

[ 242 J 


that the significance of the event which is to be cele- 
brated shall be thoroughly impressed upon every 
American Jew. 

Believing that this object can be best subserved 
by a thorough understanding, based on accurate in- 
formation, as to the part which the Jews have played 
in the development of this nation from the earliest 
days, the Executive Committee has collated a number 
of historical facts, which have a direct bearing on 
American Jewish history, conjoined with a bibli- 
ography which will enable those desirous of pursuing 
further investigations to become possessed of the his- 
tory, little known but interesting, of the Jewish 
pioneer. Coupled with these notes, the committee has, 
through the courtesy of the Funk & Wagnalls Com- 
pany, been enabled to reprint from the “ Jewish En- 
cyclopedia,” published by that company, a compre- 
hensive article on * America,” and a section of another 
article on “ New York” (the former as a separate 
pamphlet), both of which are replete with valuable 
information. 

It has also been considered appropriate to reprint 
from The American Hebrew an address delivered on 
April 29, 1905, before “ The Judaeans,” as exempli- 
fying the point of view from which this celebration is 
to be approached, and to point the moral, that whilst 
every American Jew is profoundly grateful for the 
liberties which he enjoys, in common with all other 
citizens, under the Constitution and laws of the 
United States, he does not regard those blessings as a 
mere gift from others, but as of right his, because 
his ancestors were among the early settlers and 

[ 243 ] 


pioneers of this country; were active in its develop-— 
ment; fought for its independence and preservation; 
and because, to the full extent of his power, he has 
contributed to its greatness. 


Tue Executive ComMMITTEE. 


NOTES 


I 


The year 1655 stands forth as a convenient land- 
mark for celebration of Jewish settlement in the 
United States by reason of the issuance of a “ Grant 
of Privileges,” on April 26, 1655, to the Jews of New 
Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company. This 
grant of privileges was issued in answer to remon- 
strances from Governor Stuyvesant. 


(Daly’s “Settlement of the Jews m North 
America,” p. 9, note, copied from “ Docu- 
ments Relating to the Colonial History of 
the State of New York,” vol. xiv, p. 315; 
also, ‘‘ Publications American Jewish Hist. 
Society,” vi, p. 85.) 


II 


There were stray Jewish arrivals within the present 
limits of the United States before the party of twenty- 
three arrived at New Amsterdam about September 1, 
1654, concerning whom, in particular, these instruc- 
tions were issued, but they do not seem to have arrived 


[ 244 ] 


in considerable numbers nor under any express au- 
thorization. 


(See article ““ America,” by Dr. Cyrus Adler, in 
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. i.) 


There were also very extensive early Jewish settle- 
ments in South America long before this period, 
though made originally by “ Maranos” (secret 
Jews, living ostensibly as Catholics, owing to the laws 
against Jewish residence), but these settlements had 
now (1655) practically ceased to exist. 


(See, for particulars as to “ Participation of 
Jews in the Discovery and Early Settlement 
of South America,” besides the article 
“ America” above referred to, Jewish En- 
cyclopedia articles, “ America, The Discov- 
ery of ” (by Dr. M. Kayserling), “ United 
States” (by Dr. Herbert Friedenwald and 
J. D. Eisenstein), “ Brazil” (by L. Hiihner), 
“Bahia” (by L. Hiihner), “ Recife” (by 
L. Hiihner), “ South and Central America ” 
(by Joseph Jacobs and Elkan N. Adler), 
“Chile” (by Rev. George A. Kohut), 
“Cuba” (by Maz J. Kohler), “ Curacao ” 
(by Dr. H. Friedenwald), “ Barbados” (by 
Dr. H. Friedenwald), and “ Jamaica” (by 
Maz J. Kohler); also Dr. M. Kayserling’s 
“ Christopher Columbus and the Participa- 
tion of the Jews in the Spanish and Portu- 
guese Discoveries,” translated by Dr. Charles 
Gross; “ The Colonization of America by the 

[ 245 ] 


Jews,” by Dr. M. Kayserling (Pub. Am. Jew. 
Hist. Society w); “ Columbus in Jewish Lit- 
erature,” by Prof. R. J. H. Gottheil (Id. 
a); “ The Earliest Rabbis and Jewish Writ- 
ers of America,” by Dr. M. Kayserling (Id. 
iit); “ Early Jewish Literature in America,” 
by Rev. Geo. A. Kohut (Id. wii); “ Trial of 
Jorge de Almeida by the Inquisition in Amer- 
ica,” by Dr. Cyrus Adler (Id. tv); “ Jewish 
Martyrs of the Inquisition in South Amer- 
ica,” by Rev. Geo. A. Kohut (Id. iv); “ Isaac 
Aboab, the first Jewish Author in America,” 
by Dr. M. Kayserling (Id. v); “ Trial of 
Gabriel de Granada, by the Inquisition m 
Mexico 1642-1645,” translated by David 
Ferguson and edited by Dr. Cyrus Adler (Id. 
vii); “ The Inquisition in Peru,” by Elkan 
N. Adler (Id. xii); Castelar’s “ Life of Co- 
lumbus”’ (see Jewish references extracted 
im “ Publications Am. Jew. Hist. So- 
ciety, vii, pp. 2-5, 2, 159-163); Daly’s 
“* Settlement of the Jews in North America” 
(pp. axi-xviii); Magnus’s “ Outlines of Jew- 
ish History ” (Jew. Pub. Society edition, pp. 
334-340); Markens: “The Hebrews m 
America.” ) 


The fact is to be noted that Jews not only accom- 
panied Columbus on his first voyage, but that the 
Maranos, Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez, 
were among his chief patrons and largely provided 
the funds for his voyage. As Prof. Herbert B. 


[ 246] 


Adams (Johns Hopkins Studies, x, p. 486) has well 
said, in summarizing Dr. Kayserling’s investigations, 
“not jewels but Jews were the real financial basis 
for the first expedition of Columbus.” Accordingly, 
it is not strange that Columbus’s first accounts of 
his discovery were in the form of letters addressed by 
him to Santangel and Sanchez. 
m1 


The importance of this Dutch Grant of Leave of 
Settlement lies largely in the fact that at this time 
(1655) nearly all of Western Europe was closed to 
the Jews. Spain had expelled them in 1492, Portugal 
following her example soon after, and the Inquisition 
was engaged in enforcing these decrees of expulsion. 
In England the decree of expulsion of King Edward 
I of July 18, 1290, was deemed to be still in force, 
though Menasseh ben Israel presented his “ Humble 
Address ” to Cromwell in September of this very year, 
1655, and the “ Whitehall Conference ” which Crom- 
well convened in December, 1655, resolved that there 
was nothing in the English laws against the Jews re- 
siding in England, though nothing definite came for 
the time being of plans for an affirmative grant of 
leave of settlement. 


(See Lucien Wolf: “ Menasseh ben Israel and 
His Mission to Oliver Cromwell,” and Joseph 
Jacobs’ article “ England ” in “ Jewish En- 
cyclopedia.”) 


Similarly, in France, edicts of exclusion were pe- 
riodically in force against the Jews (see article 
“ France” in the “ Jewish Encyclopedia”), as also 

[ 247] 


in many sections of Germany. The Netherlands 
alone, of Western Europe, recognized Jewish rights, 
after they had succeeded in wresting their own liber- 
ties, civil and religious, from Spanish despotism, and, 
beginning about 1593, began to welcome Jewish set- 
tlement in various localities [Graetz: “ History of 
the Jews ” (Eng. transl., vol. iv, p. 650 et seq.), and 
Jew. Ency. article “ Netherlands ”], particularly in 
Amsterdam, whose constituent ‘ chamber” of the 
Dutch West India Company had charge of the colo- 
nial possessions in Brazil and New Netherlands. The 
exceptional position of Amsterdam in this respect, at 
practically the same time that it afforded a haven of 
rest to the persecuted Puritans, is aptly characterized 
by Judge Daly in his “ Settlement of the Jews in 
North America ” (p. 3) as follows: 

** Amsterdam presented the spectacle of a city 
where all religions were tolerated, and where men of 
‘all shades of political opinion found themselves secure 
in their persons and property. By a writer of that 
day it was stigmatized as ‘ a common harbor of all 
opinions and of all heresies.? By another, in the 
figurative language then in fashion, ‘as a cage of 
unclean birds,’ and even Andrew Marvel, the friend 
of Milton and the incorruptible patriot, wrote a de- 
risive poem upon Holland, in which Amsterdam was 
described with its mixed population of ‘ Turk, Chris- 
tian, Pagan, Jew,” its ‘bank of conscience,’ where 
‘all opinions found credit and exchange,’ closing his 
poem with a line which he certainly meant in no spirit 
of compliment: 

‘The universal church is only there.’ ” 


[ 248 ] 


_ Compare Jewish experiences in early Maryland: 


(Prof. J. H. Hollander: ‘‘ Some Unpublished 
Material Relating to Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo ”’ 
(Pub. 2, 25 et seq.), and “ Civil: Status of 
Jews im Maryland, 1634-1776,” (Pub. i, 
33 et seq.) 


Contrast, however, such utterances as Roger Wil- 
liams’, specifically demanding Jewish emancipation, 


(Oscar S. Straus: “ Life of Roger Williams ” 
(pp. 110, 111), quoted also in M. J. Kohler: 
“The Jews in Newport” (Pub. Am. Jew. 
Hist. Society, vi, 65.) 


and also those of a few other of Cromwell’s contem- 
poraries (Wolf: ‘“‘ Menasseh ben Israel,” p. xviii, et 
seq.), including John Milton, in contradistinction to 
those of such types of contemporary American Puri- 
tanism as Cotton Mather, who in his “ Magnalia ” 
characterized Roger Williams’ settlement at New- 
port, where Jews were welcomed soon after 1655, for 
this very reason as “the common receptacle of the 
convicts of Jerusalem and the outcasts of the land” 
(quoted in Pub. Am. Jew. Hist. Society vi., 65-6). 
On the general subject of Dutch liberality in this re- 
spect, see Daly’s ‘“ Settlement ” Introduction, p. xiv 
and p. 4; “ Publications ” Am. Jew. Hist. Society vi, 
81 et seq. “ Civil Status of the Jews in Colonial New 
York ” and Douglass Campbell: “ The Puritan in 
England, Holland, and America”). 

On America’s contributions to civilization as pio- 


[ 249 ] 


neer in establishing religious liberty, with particu- 
lar reference to the Jews, see “ Phases in the History 
of Religious Liberty in America, with Special Refer- 
ence to the Jews,” by M. J. Kohler, in “ Pub. Am. 
Jew. Hist. Society, xi, 53 et seg., quoting David 
Dudley Field (‘“ American Progress in Jurispru- 
dence” in the American Law Review, vol. xxvii, p. 
641, [1893]) and Judge Simeon E. Baldwin (“Mod- 
ern Political Institutions,” pp. 15-25, 246), note p. 
59; Oscar S. Straus: “ Religious Liberty in the 
United States ” and also his “ Origin of Republican 
Form of Government in the United States of Amer- 
ica,” second edition, with introductory essay by 
Emile de Laveleye, translated from the French edi- 
tion. See this work also for development of the theory 
of American indebtedness to the Hebrew for the origin 
of Republican form of government. 


IV 


The pronounced success and prosperity of the Jews 
in Holland is indicated in the works already cited and 
the bibliographies forming a part of the several Jew- 
ish Encyclopedia articles. 


(Compare article “ Commerce,” by Joseph Ja- 
cobs in “ Jewish Encyclopedia,” Herzfeld’s 
“ Handelsgeschichte der Juden,” Roscher: 
“ Die Juden im Mittelalter ” (in “ Ansichten 
der Volkswirthschaft,”’ i, 321 et seq.), M. J. 
Kohler: “ Jewish Activity in American Colo- 
nial Commerce” (in Pub. Am. Jew. Hist. 
[ 250 ] 


Society, x, p. 47), and Israel Zangwill: 
“ What Have the Hebrews Accomplished? ” 
“ Success,” May, 1902.) 


Their activities in the Dutch West India Company, 
as heavy stockholders and directors, and as influential 
in directing its fortunes from the start, are matters 
of record. 


(Grant of privileges of April 26, 1655, quoted 
above; Daly: “ Settlement of the Jews nm 
North America,” pp. xv-avii, 5, 9; article on 
“ Netherlands ” in “ Jewish Encyclopedia,” 
and works cited in bibliographical note 
thereto.) 


Vv 


The circumstances under which this “ Grant 
of Privileges”’ was issued, and the evolution of the 
Jewish community of New York, the oldest, and, to- 
day, by far the largest within the present limits of 
the United States, are concisely outlined in the “ Jew- 
ish Encyclopedia,” article “ New York” (by Max J. 
Kohler), where the subject is treated more fully than 
was possible in the article “* America.” 


VE 


For further particulars concerning the history of 
the Jews in the United States see the various works 
cited in the bibliographies of the articles, “ Amer- 
ica” and “New York,” in the “ Jewish Encyclo- 
pedia,” as also the various articles under the names 
of the various States and large cities, as well as the 

[ 251 ] 


cross references; also the twelve volumes of the pub- 
lications of the American Jewish Historical Society. 


VII 


For correspondence between Jews of America and 
our early Presidents, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, 
and Madison, see “ Publications”? Am. Jew. Hist. 
Society iii, 87-101; iv, 219-222, xi, 63, 66, 68; Com- 
pare Simon Wolf: “ 'The American Jew as Patriot, 
Soldier, and Citizen,” especially pp. 53-61, 488-522. 


Vill 


During the week including April 26, 1905, the 
“ Judaean ” Club, of New York, celebrated the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Jewish settlement 
in America at the Hotel Savoy, and the introductory 
address of a series of addresses, delivered by Louis 
Marshall, Esq., emphasized the purposes of the cele- 
bration. It was printed in The American Hebrew of 
May 5, 1905, and in the Menorah Monthly, May, 
1905. 


[ 252] 


IV 


ORDER OF SERVICE FOR USE ON THE SABBATH 
BEFORE THANKSGIVING DAY, NINETEEN HUNDRED 
AND FIVE, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE TWO 
HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
SETTLEMENT OF THE JEWS IN THE UNITED STATES 


PREPARED BY A COMMITTEE CONSISTING OF REV. 

DR. H. PEREIRA MENDES (Chairman), REV. DR. M. H. 

HARRIS, REV. DR. PHILIP KLEIN, REV. DR. K. KOH- 

LER, DR. S. SCHECHTER, REV. DR. SAMUEL SCHUL- 
MAN and REV. DR. JOSEPH SILVERMAN 


ORDER OF SERVICE 


(To be recited before the return of the Scroll of the 
Law to the Ark) 


1. HYMN. 
(To be chosen by the Congregation) 
2. PSALM CVII. 


(To be read in responses by the Minister and the Con- 
gregation) 


38. PSALM CXVIII. Verszs 1-24. 
(To be chanted by the Reader and Choir) 
4. PRAYER. 
O Lord, our God, God of our fathers, Ruler of na- 


tions, we worship Thee and praise Thy name for Thy 
[ 253 | 


mercy and for Thy truth. On this day of our re- 
joicing we will make mention of Thy loving kindness 
according to all that Thou hast bestowed on us and 
we will proclaim Thy great goodness toward the house 
of Israel. For Thou didst say, Surely they are My 
people, children that will not deal falsely; so Thou 
hast been our Savior. 

Throughout the past ages Thou hast carried Israel 
as on eagles’ wings. From the bondage of Egypt, 
through the trials of the wilderness, Thou didst bring 
us and didst plant us in the land which Thou didst 
choose. In the sorrows of Babylon, Thy love and 
pity redeemed us; and when dispersed in every land, 
Thy Divine presence accompanied us in every afilic- 
tion. Yea, when we passed through the waters, Thou 
wast with us, and through the rivers, they did not 
overflow us; when we walked through fire, we were not 
burned. From nation to nation Thou didst lead us, 
until the hand of the oppressor was weakened and the 
day of human rights began to dawn. Wherever we 
found a resting place, and built Thee a sanctuary, 
Thou didst dwell in our midst, and cleaving unto 
Thee, O Lord, we are alive this day. 

We thank Thee that Thou hast sustained us unto 
this day, and that in the fullness of Thy mercy Thou 
hast vouchsafed to us of the seed of Israel a soil on 
which to grow strong in freedom and in fidelity to 
Thy truth. Thou hast opened unto us this blessed 
haven of our beloved land. Everlasting God, in 
whose eyes a thousand years are as yesterday which 
is past and as a watch of the night, we lift up our 
hearts in gratitude to Thee, in that two hundred and 

[ 254 ] 


fifty years ago Thou didst guide a little band of 
Israel’s children who, seeking freedom to worship 
Thee, found it in a land which, with Thy blessing, 
became a refuge of freedom and justice for the op- 
pressed of all peoples. We thank Thee that our lot 
has fallen in pleasant places. Verily, O Lord God of 
Israel, Thou hast given rest unto Thy people, rest 
from our sorrow, and from the hard bondage wherein 
we were made to serve. 

O Lord, look down from Thy holy habitation from 
heaven and bless this Republic. Preserve it in the 
liberty which has been proclaimed in the land, and in 
the righteousness which is its foundation. Bless it 
with prosperity and peace. May it advance from 
strength to strength and continue to be a refuge for 
all who seek its shelter. Imbue all its citizens with 
a spirit of loyalty to its ideals. May they be ever 
mindful that the blessings of liberty are safeguarded 
by obedience to law, and that the prosperity of the 
nation rests upon trust in Thy goodness and reverence 
for Thy commandments. Bless the President and his 
counselors, the judges, lawgivers, and executives of 
our country. Put forth upon them the spirit of wis- 
dom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and the 
spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear 
of the Lord. May America become a light to all 
peoples, teaching the world that righteousness ex- 
alteth a nation. 

Our Father in Heaven, Who lovest all nations, all 
men are Thy children. Thou dost apportion tasks 
to peoples according to their gifts of mind and heart. 
But all are revealing Thy marvelous plans for man- 

[ 255 J 


kind. May the day speedily dawn when Thy king- 
dom will be established on earth, when nations shall 
learn war no more, when peace shall be the crowning 
reward of a world redeemed by justice, and all men 
shall know Thee, from the greatest unto the least. 
Then shall loving kindness and truth meet, righteous- 
ness and peace kiss each other, truth spring forth 
from earth and righteousness look down from heaven. 
May all hearts serve Thee with one accord and recog- 
nize that Thou art One and Thy Name is One. 


Amen. 


5. RETURN OF THE SCROLL OF THE LAW 
TO THE ARK. 


[ 256] 


V 


COMMITTEES IN CHARGE OF THE 
GENERAL CELEBRATION 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
Jacos H. Scutrr, Chairman 


Dr. Cyrus Adler 

Hon. Samuel Greenbaum 
Daniel Guggenheim 

Prof. Jacob H. Hollander 
Max J. Kohler, Honorary Secretary 
Hon. Edward Lauterbach 
Adolph Lewisohn 

Louis Marshall 

Rev. Dr. H. Pereira Mendes 
Hon. N. Taylor Phillips 

Hon. Simon W. Rosendale 
William Salomon 

Isaac N. Seligman, Treasurer 
Louis Stern 

Hon. Oscar S. Straus 

Hon. Mayer Sulzberger 


[ 257 ] 


GENERAL COMMITTEE 


‘AALABAMA.—Jacques Loeb, Rev. Alfred G. Moses. 

Axaska.—Hon. Harry L. Cohn. 

Arizona.—Lionel M. Jacobs. 

Arxansas.—Morris M. Cohn, Hon. Jacob Triber. 

Catirornia.—Bernard Bienenfeld, Hon. Julius 
Kahn, Jesse Lilienthal, Prof. Max Margolis, Gen. 
Edward Salomon, Rev. Dr. J. Voorsanger, Harris 
Weinstock. 

Cotorapo.—Rev. Dr. W. S. Friedman, Simon 
Guggenheim. 

ConnectTicuT.—Rev. David Levy, Prof. Lafayette 
Mendel. 

DetawarE.—Charles Van Leer. 

District or CoLtumsia.—Emil Berliner, Col. C. 
H. Lauchheimer, Dr. Milton Rosenau, A. S. Solo- 
mons, Hon. Simon Wolf. 

Fioriwa.—Adolph Greenhut. 

Grorcia.—Jacob Haas, Robert Loveman, Abra- 
ham Minis, Hon. Herman Myers. 

Ipauo.—Hon. M. Alexander. 

Ixumwois.—Hon. Samuel Altschuler, Rev. Dr. B. 
Felsenthal, Henry L. Frank, Harry Hart, Rev. Dr. 
Emil G. Hirsch, Hon. Adolf Kraus, Hon. Julian W. 
Mack, Julius Rosenwald, Rev. Dr. T. Schanfarber, 
Rev. Dr. Joseph Stolz, Henry M. Wolf, Samuel 
Woolner. 

Inp1an Trrritory.—Hon. Louis Sulzbacher. 

[ 258 ] 


Inprana.— Rev. Charles I. Hoffman, Henry Rauh. 

Towa.—Rev. Eugene Mannheimer. 

Kansas.—Charles Cohen, Henry Ettenson, Louis 
Michael. 

Kentucky.—Isaac W. Bernheim, Lewis N. Dem- 
bitz, Rev. H. G. Enelow. 

Lovistana.—William Adler, Rev. Dr. Max Heller, 
Hon. Benj. F. Jonas, Rev. Dr. Isaac Leucht, Isidor 
Neuman. 

Marinze.—L. Abramson. 

Maryrtanp.—Dr. Harry Friedenwald, Rev. Dr. 
A. Guttmacher, Rev. A. Kaiser, Hon. Isidor Rayner, 
Rev. Dr. Wm. Rosenau, Rev. C. A. Rubinstein, Rev. 
H. W. Schneeberger, Sigmund B. Sonneborn. 

MassacuusEtTts.—Rev. Charles Fleischer, Lee M. 
Friedman, Prof. Charles Gross, Rev. Philip I. 
Israelite. 

Micuican.—Rev. Leo M. Franklin, David E. 
Heineman, Prof. Max Winkler. 

Minnesota.—Emanuel Cohen, W. H. Elzinger, 
Rev. I. L. Rypins. 

Mississtpp1.—Rev. Wolf Willner, Rev. S. L. Kory. 

Missourt.—Hon. Nathan Frank, Rev. Dr. L. Har- 
rison, Prof. Isidor Loeb, Rev. Dr. Samuel Sale, Wil- 
liam Stix, Martin Wollman. 

Montana.—Henry L. Frank. 

Nepraska.—Rev. Frederick Cohn, Edward Rose- 
water. 

Nevapa.—M. Badt. 

New Hampsuire.—Julius Katz. 

New Jersry.—Nathan Barnert, M. L. Bayard, 
Rev. Solomon Foster. 


[ 259 ] 


New Mexico.—Rev. Louis J. Kaplan, Solomon 
Spiegelberg. 

New Yorx.—Rev. Dr. Israel Aaron, A. Abraham, 
B. Altman, Rev. Dr. J. M. Asher, Rev. Raphael 
Benjamin, Julius Bien, Nathan Bijur, David Blau- 
stein, Dr. Mark Blumenthal, Arnold W. Brunner, 
Joseph L. Buttenwieser, Isidor Byk, Abraham Cahan, 
Joseph H. Cohen, Philip Cowen, Rev. Dr. B. Drach- 
man, Hon. Nathaniel A. Elsberg, David L. Einstein, 
J. D. Eisenstein, Dr. Lee K. Frankel, A. S. Freidus, 
Hon. Henry M. Goldfogle, Samuel Gompers, Rev. Dr. 
A. Guttmann, Prof. R. J. H. Gottheil, Rev. Dr. R. 
Grossman, Rev. Dr.M.H. Harris, Daniel P. Hays, H. 
Herskovitz, Hon. M. H. Hirschberg, Leon Hihner, 
Dr. H. Illoway, I. S. Isaacs, Dr. Nathan Jacobson, 
Joseph Jacobs, Nathan S. Jonas, Joshua Kantrowitz, 
Rev. Dr. Philip Klein, Rev. Dr. M. Landsberg, 
Emanuel Lehman, Irving Lehman, Dr. H. M. Leip- 
ziger, Dr. S. N. Leo, Hon. David Leventritt, Ferdi- 
nand Levy, L. Napoleon Levy, Hon. Lucius N. Lit- 
tauer, Louis Loeb, Prof. Morris Loeb, Albert Lucas, 
Rev. Alexander Lyons, Jacob W. Mack, Rev. Dr. J. 
L. Magnes, Dr. M. Manges, Joseph S. Marcus, Hon. 
Louis W. Marcus, Marcus M. Marks, Rev. H. Ma- 
sliansky, Hon. Julius M. Mayer, Rev. Dr. F. de Sola 
Mendes, Percival S. Menken, Baruch Miller, Henry 
Morgenthau, Rev. Dr. I. S. Moses, Henry Mosler, 
Edgar J. Nathan, Frederick Nathan, Max Nathan, 
Hon. Joseph E. Newburger, Adolph S. Ochs, M. 
Warley Platzek, Rev. S. Rappaport, Henry Rice, 
A. N. Rothholz, Jacob Saphirstein, E. Sarasohn, Dr. 
S. Schechter, Rev. Dr. S. Schulman, James Seligman, 

[ 260 ] 


Rev. Dr. J. Silverman, Leopold Stern, M. S. Stern, 
Hon. Isidor Straus, Samuel Strauss, Cyrus L. Sulz- 
berger, Isaac Wallach, Jonas Weil, Julius M. Wile, 
Dr. A. L. Wolbarst, Capt. E. L. Zalinski, Rev. Dr. 
L. Zinsler. 

NortH Carorma.—Rev. S. Mendelsohn. 

Nortu Daxota.—Max Stern. 

Outo.—Edward M. Baker, Bernhard Bettman, 
Rev. Dr. M. J. Gries, Rev. Dr. Louis Grossman, Dr. 
K. Kohler, Rev. Dr. D. Philipson, Dr. Joseph Ranso- 
hoff, Hon. Jacob Schroder, Hon. Lewis Seasongood, 
Max Senior, Leo Wise, Rev. George Zepin. 

OxtaHoma.—Seymour C. Heyman. 

Orrcon.—Hon. Joseph Simon, Rev. Dr. Stephen 
S. Wise. 

PENNSYLVANIA.—Rey. Dr. H. Berkowitz, Charles 
J. Cohen, Hon. Josiah Cohen, Dr. S. Solis Cohen, Dr. 
Herbert Friedenwald, Louis Gerstley, William B. 
Hackenburg, Bernard Harris, Max Herzberg, Rev. 
Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, Rev. B. L. Levinthal, Rev. 
Dr. J. Leonard Levy, Morris Newburger, Hon. Geo. 
W. Ochs, Hon. Jacob Singer, David Sulzberger, 
Seligman J. Strauss. 

Porto Rico.—Hon. Adolph G. Wolf. 

Ruope Istanp.—Eugene Schreier. 

Soutu Carotma.—Rev. Dr. B. A. Elzas, J. Moul- 
ton Mordecai. 

Soutn Daxota.—sS. Kuh. 

TrEnNESSEE.—H. C. Adler, Rev. Dr. M. Samfield. 

Trxas.—Rev. Henry Cohen. 

Urau.—Jacob Bamberger. 

Vermont.—H. H. Rosenberg. 

[ 261 ] 


tei i e — \ D EL 


—Leo Koh 
Wises mer | ‘Samuel 
Rich. 
Wromine.—N. Lewis. 


[ 262 ] 


THIS VOLUME HAS BEEN PUBLISHED 
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE 
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 


PRINTED BY 
THE NEW YORK CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY 
358 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 


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